Friday, May 13. 2005
Movie : Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room - Part 2
| I did finally see "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" a couple of weeks ago. Even though I was fairly familar with the main parts of the scandel, the documentary was quite illuminating as well as disturbing. It was illuminating (and disturbing) to see how close the Skilling and Lay were to the Bush family (both presidents). Two power utilities that were hardest hit by the Enron-created California Energy Crisis were PG&E and Southern Cal-Edison. PG&E neared bankruptcy, which forced the State of California to bail them out (but having the consequence of essentially bankrupting the state). Of course, this does not even begin to take into account the thousands of employees who lost their entire savings and pensions. It is made even more heart-wrenching when you hear (recently uncovered) tapes of the Enron West Coast traders laughing (callously) about screwing the California power grid. In some of the segments, you hear the traders telling the plant operators to "get creative" with the excuses for shutting down the power plants, thereby causing a shortage and driving the prices up. (I did give in and buy one of the Enron T-Shirts that the Uptown Theatre was selling with the "Ask Why" on the front. Of course it would have been funnier to acquire a T-Shirt with the "Ask Why -- **shole" on the front -- a play off of Jeff Skilling's response to a stock analyst asking why Enron never could seem to produce a balance sheet; of course there is always Ebay....  ). |  |
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