cross posted at
Liberal Streetfight
I just returned from seeing ENRON:The Smartest Guys in the Room and I am about to bust a gut yet again. This film chronicles the absolute craven souls who did a world of damage to a city (Houston) an entire state (California) and showed us just how corrupt our banks, accounting firms and government still are today.
I've read quite a bit over the years but until I saw the film this afternoon it never congealed just how brazen these people were and how they still to this day boldface lie about the entire matter. This should be a great tool for the prosecution in the cases coming up to trial.
Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay engineered the most horrendous business environment imaginable and then proceeded to rob, steal and Ponzi their way into wealth while leaving a devastating trail of victims. Even today people are still wiped out by the events of a few years ago and many pensioners and workers will never recover. This film really delivers the punches.
Bush and Cheney are nailed in this film thank goodness but i still think they were let off easily as Cheney's Energy Meetings are not delved into at all. I so wanted to see Dianne Feinstein's public assertions that she represented (i think this was the number) 48 million Americans and couldn't get Cheney on the phone while her state was being bilked out of 30-plus billion dollars and yet Ken Lay had direct access.
There is one devastating piece of information i am still reeling from. Evidently at the height of the California Energy Crisis, Jeffrey Skilling came to California and was hit with a blueberry pie at a conference and the bad press started to mount. Ken Lay made a visit to Los Angeles shortly afterward and there was a private meeting at the Peninsula Hotel attended amongst others by Arnold Schwarzenegger!
If this doesn't make the hair stand on the back of your neck nothing will. The Repbulicans allowed California to be raped by Enron and then proceeded to install a Republican governor who has done nothing about replacing the shortfall, and who was meeting with Ken Lay before he ran.
The other thing I was reminded of was that the entire energy deregulation in California was done under the Republican Governor Pete Wilson during his last term in office. What a sham this is, the dirty deed was done by a Republican governor while the Democratic successor was trashed by the same deeds and was recalled and then replaced by a Republican to clean up the mess. This is a Karl Rove wet-dream come to life.
Skilling and Lay go to trial in early '06. It would be incredible if this film manages to keep the light shined brightly on them as these rats go before a judge. Ken Lay alone has spent 23 million dollars on his legal defense so far trying to get off.
There are many victims in this saga but also many perpetrators, from Enron and it's heirarchy as well as it's traders whose tapes saying the most awful things imaginable are shown here, as well as the banks, accounting firms, stock analysts and business press who all facilitated this. And as Sharon Watkins says to the camera, "Don't think this can't happen again".