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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15 |
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Jay Elias | You can take it with you
"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II
2002-01-26- 12:45 a.m.
Three-Enron Opera
I’m fascinated by this whole Enron thing lately. I can’t seem to stop checking the papers and stuff for news about it. I suppose I’m easily entertained. I’m not sure that with everything that is being said and written about it, I can come up with much that’s new, but I’m sure gonna try.
The truly fascinating thing about the Enron scandal is that it has all the makings of a Bertold Brecht play: one of the nation’s most respected companies turns out to be little more than a fancy pyramid scheme, and the nation’s most respected accounting firm is its accomplice. It awakes with in even the most jaded of us a bit of the class warrior; here, we have executives selling shares for millions just as fast as they can while they freeze employee 401k plans to prevent them from dumping their own shares. The same executives whose shady policies led to the utter collapse of the company reaped tens of millions in untouchable dollars, while the earnest employees of the company who had seen their retirement funds swell as the stock soared on the back of fuzzy numbers are wiped out. Thank God this comes after the failure of Communism, for what better condemnation of capitalism and the exploitative nature of business could you imagine?
And of course, the taint spreads everywhere. Never mind the truly ridiculous and possibly criminal behavior of Enron itself and their auditor, Arthur Andersen. The entire investment community chose to accept the fuzzy math at face value; they couldn’t wait to exploit the stock on its way up. The SEC didn’t even look, much less find anything. The administration, eager to promote the “success” of Enron (which they may or may not have known was largely fraudulent), deregulated the marketplaces it traded in, to make it even easier for such a disaster to happen.
And now we’ve entered the second act, the home of the real high drama. See how it begins, with everyone denying everything or refusing to disclose what they knew. But any fan of the theater knows that this won’t last. Arthur Andersen’s former lead auditor won’t stay silent forever; sooner or later, he’ll either get a deal so they can make him talk, or so much will be said against him that he’ll have to testify just to mitigate the level of his own culpability. The Bush administration can’t continue to ignore Congress and the GAO forever; boldface refusals are the surest way to cause a demand for answers that will reach critical mass. And just today it seems a former high up exec with the company committed suicide. It’s almost third act time now, you see, and what always happens is that the people who are ready to fall never fail but to hit the bottom.
Y’know, Lucy2 works for Arthur Andersen. I wonder if the next time I see her, it will be on the news because she did some shredding. Interesting. To me, at the least.
Copyright © 2001, 2002 - EoZ
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Older
Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02
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