New film exposes Enron's hubris

[question everything]

The Daily Breeze

Thursday, June 09, 2005

New film exposes Enron's hubris

The Enron story is still as infuriating as ever, and perhaps, thanks to Gibney's film, even more so.
By Lee Drutman

BERKELEY -- Filmmaker Alex Gibney, the man behind the recently released film about Enron, titled "The Smartest Guys in the Room," has done us a great service. He has reminded us that, 3½ years after the company's befuddling bankruptcy made bombshell news, the Enron story is still as infuriating as ever, and perhaps, thanks to Gibney's film, even more so.

And yet the very brilliance of the film -- devilish, devastating portraits of Enron's gang of goniffs, Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Andrew Fastow and friends -- may distract from the political message that the film seems to be trying to get at: that Enron was as much a product of the collective evil genius of Lay, Skilling and Fastow as it was the product of the Arthur Andersen and Merrill Lynch firms, energy deregulation and an entire financial press, which was far more the reckless cheerleader than the mindful watchdog. Enron was a rotten apple, sure, but it needed rotten soil and a rotten climate to make it so. Unfortunately, film culture being what it is -- to entertain for two hours -- one can't get lost in too many big-picture details.

(snip)


And though the film shows us Enron's energy traders exchange snide comments as they make millions by manufacturing California's energy crisis, Enron was just one of 70 energy and utility companies accused of artificially driving up prices during the California energy crisis.

Nor is it clear that the minds behind Enron -- or the leaders at any of the companies that have recently collapsed under the weight of their own arrogance -- could have accomplished so much on their own. Big accounting firms gave the company's financial statements their then-meaningful seal of approval. Lawyers signed off on dubious deals -- of which many of the worst were made possible by major financial institutions. Then there are the numerous regulatory agencies that should have detected something -- as should have the financial press.

Thanks to Gibney's "The Smartest Guys in the Room," we have a lasting and engaging testimony of Enron's financial and moral bankruptcy. Nevertheless, those who care about the integrity of the economy must remember that Enron was not merely a stunning tale about a bunch of evil geniuses. It was also an indictment of an economic and political system that allowed a company based almost entirely on hot air become the seventh-largest firm in America.

Unfortunately, the latter is a much more difficult story to tell.

Find this article at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/articles/1615196.html

Lee Drutman, author of The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy, wrote this column for The Providence Journal in Rhode Island.

[grumpy old fart]

1. Excellent Film.....

Lay better end up behind bars, and broke, or else!!! (along with his WH buddies if there was any real justice)

[reprehensor]

2. Highly recommended documentary.

Well worth the price of admission.