Smoke And Mirrors
Posted on | April 25, 2005 at 7:16 pm | 1 Comment
This past weekend, I caught a sneak preview of the theatrical documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, that was shown on Mark Cuban’s HDNet Movies channel (presumedly because Cuban was one of the producers). Fascinating stuff, especially for someone like me who had never even heard of Enron until the scandal broke. And I’m still unsure, even after viewing the documentary, exactly what business the company was in, other than it had something to do with trading energy like how Wall Street trades stocks. And as the doc makes clear, they were able to get away with things for so long because most of America didn’t have much a clue about what they did either. Though it doesn’t delve much into the minutiae of the company’s business, it does go into detail about the personalities involved and what they were apparently up to, and even goes so far as attempting to encapsulate Evil (at least in human beings) and linking said Enron execs to that designation. And if ever humans deserved to be called that, it appears these guys are it. I also didn’t know much about the infamous California energy crisis, the one that derailed governor Gray Davis and put Ahnold into office, but I do know a lot about it now, and how closely it was linked to the Enron scandal. Wow. I will be interested to see what happens when Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling go to trial in January. Though with the ties they have, it may not end up being much.
There are lots and lots of things the Enron guys did and said that just blew me away with their audacity, but I’m not going to list them. Better to experience it yourself. There was nothing groundbreaking about the presentation – like most docs, it’s mostly talking heads. But there’s good use of music and clips, and the talkers are generally pretty interesting. Parts of it are funny, but that’s mostly due to the aforementioned audacity of the subjects. One bit was an Enron in-house produced clip of a skit starring Skilling, bragging about getting their wacky accounting scheme accepted and brainstorming even more outrageous practices (counting hypothetical future earnings as profits).
I am glad I got to see it for free – I’m not sure I would’ve gone to see it in the theater. I did have to pause it after a half hour or so and take a nap (talking heads do that to me, no matter how interesting what they’re saying is, especially when I’m watching at home in my comfy chair). Though the HD picture was nice, documentaries don’t do much to show off the format. And of course, the whole thing acts as a warning. Surely Enron can’t be the only company to operate like this and get away with it for so long, can they? Watch your retirement accounts and pension plans, kids!
It looks like the movie is playing in limited release now and will be opening wider this weekend.
Latre.
Comments
One Response to “Smoke And Mirrors”
April 26th, 2005 @ 3:53 pm
I haven’t seen the documentary, but I do remember “Burn, baby, burn!”…
As for other companies operating like them – Enron weren’t the ’smartest guys in the room’, bub, they got caught! Don’t get me started about Microsoft, the company which (for starters) quite literally is allowed to print money, or… well, right now all I can think about is Microsoft, now that you got me started. But there are plenty of examples to point to, particularly if you look beyond U.S. borders (where the Rule of Law prevails, and the SEC keeps a tight watch on everyone!)
The Russian oil firm Yukos barely made news here but it was a LOT bigger of a collapse/embezzlement deal than Enron and Worldcom put together, and the democratically elected president was directly involved…