http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/23/124923.php
Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Peter Elkind
Book from Portfolio Hardcover
Release date: 13 October, 2003
In this worth-seeing documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room, cliches and metaphors are bandied about like candy. The Emperor Has No Clothes. Turning Hay into Gold. Jeff Skilling used Andy Fastow like Kathleen Turner used William Hurt in Body Heat. These phrases would be comical if they weren't so darn apt.
I finally dragged my husband and some friends to see the Enron documentary. Overall, I thought it told the story the best way that it could be told. (As I've mentioned on my blog Conglomerate, I practiced law and was a law professor in Houston from 1994-2003, and Enron was my client in 1997-98). Instead of focusing on the structured finance vehicles and conflicts of interest that merely covered up losses, the documentary begins by looking at the culture and personality of the company that may have resulted in the losses themselves. The interesting part of the Enron story that makes it different from every other accounting fraud story is the risk-taking culture there that resulted in such hubris-filled business risks that backfired, such as (my project) the Dabhol, India power plant, the Azurix water plant, and the dreams of broadband. The documentary begins by examining that personality that enabled Enron to create markets and industries that did not exist beforehand but that would ultimately be its downfall.
If you are an expert on any piece of the puzzle, you will be able to criticize that piece of the puzzle in the documentary. For example, the documentary describes "mark-to-market" accounting in about 3 sentences, so of course, the description is not entirely apt. Of course, the movie could have tried to describe mark-to-market in 300 sentences, but then everyone would walk out of the movie. When the narrator tells the audience that Merrill-Lynch bought a barge from Enron, the audience chuckles because what would ML need a barge for? But, in 1999, many financial firms were buying assets, but that detail is omitted. The documentary describes the California power crisis and details how Enron called "the Power Plant" (words on the screen) to tell it to shut down in order to increase demand for electricity. But, the documentary does not mention that Enron did not own that power plant (or any in California) and does not mention the big power company that did.
Many people come off easy in the documentary. Gray Davis, for instance, and the California legislature that created such a stupid PX system. Vinson & Elkins and Arthur Andersen are named a couple of times, but no individual is named and there is no footage of their buildings or logos. No Enron director is named. The documentary focuses on Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and to some extent, Andy Fastow. Lea Fastow's name is never mentioned, nor is her picture shown.
The movie relies heavily on taped conversations of power traders and on emails, taped employee meetings, and taped investor conference calls. Of course, some of the statements are shocking to hear now. Part of that reason is that not everyone, and certainly few of the rank-and-file people, knew the entire picture and that what they were doing was illegal. The power traders, for instance, were following the rules of the California power exchange. If you had asked them whether they were manipulating the market, they would have said, "Of course. That's my job." The line between legal manipulation and illegal manipulation is very unclear, which probably explains why all the federal indictments for manipulating the power market during that time have languished for years.
The most interesting footage in the documentary was of Sherron Watkins testifying in front of Congress. I never picked up on this, but she had to sit at the same table as Jeff Skilling, with only Skilling's lawyer in between them. So, Watkins would say that Skilling knew about something, then two people down, Skilling would call her a liar. That kind of whistleblowing takes a lot of bravery, I think.
======================
C-SPAN Q AND A
TODAY'S PROGRAM
June 19, 2005
Bethany McLean
Fortune Magazine Senior Writer
CO-AUTHOR:
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room:
Info: She discusses her reporting on the investigation of Enron. She is the co-author of "Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" (2003). The movie, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which was released in April, is based on her book.
MORE:
http://qanda.org/Program/?ProgramID=1027
Some key Enron players (left to right): founder Ken Lay; Jeff Skilling; Andy Fastow; and Lou Pai, key architect of Enron's trading operation.
Partners in Crime
The untold story of how Citi, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Merrill Lynch helped Enron pull off one of the greatest scams ever. The complicity of so many highly regarded Wall Street firms in the Enron scandal is stunningly documented in internal presentations and e-mails, many of which have never before been published. So far, six banks embroiled in the scandal have agreed to pay out a total of nearly $3 billion to investors and regulators to settle charges of wrongdoing.
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, co-authors of The Smartest Guys in the Room, talk about the amazing Enron saga in an exclusive Q&A.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/specials/2003/1027/enron.html
=======================
APFN: BUSH / ENRON / CONNECTIONS & COVER-UP
Bethany McLean
Bethany McLean, co-author of Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and
Scandalous Fall of Enron. She is also a staff writer for Fortune magazine.
http://www.selvesandothers.org/view895.html
RECENT ARTICLES
Bethany McLean
BethanyMcLean@fortunemail.com
