the smartest guys in the room

just saw this documentary
it was made in 2006 before the current erecssion, and its interesting to watch in light of recent events. the behaviour demonstrated by lay and skilling is not dissimilar to the hubris and arrogance demonstrated by the executives of merryl lynch, leamen brothers and so on
in fact, the list of those banks who suppported and acted as cheerleaders for enron sound awfully familiar (citibank etc)-the same ones who have either gone under or required bailouts

as ever, the executives came out of the exercise with millions of dollars while the rank and file lost everything

some things to note. skilling was big fam of richard dawkins book the selfish gene and had applied the evolutionary theory to business. essentially selfishness was the order of the day, most notably when they exploited (and to a large extent caused) the california energy crisis

it was also interesting to note that at the height of their crisis enron were insisting that their grred was not the problem, but that their market was too regulated.

i noted that several right wing blogs have claimed that the current recession was not caused by greed, but by (left-wing) governements and agencies forcing banks and financial institutions to loan money to people who couldn't afford to repay.

at the time, there were suggestions that enron's behaviour was an aberration.

apparently not

definatly a filem worth checking out