From LaVern Isely
Monroe
To the editor:
If Sen. Bernie Sanders would win the Democratic primary, which it looks like he could do, it would be because of movies like "ENRON: The Smartest Guys In the Room," "The Big Short," the miniseries on Feb. 3 and 4 on ABC TV about Madoff, along with many other books.
The subject matter brought up in the Enron story and the time it took place during the Bush-Cheney administration in 2001 before 9/11 and after 9/11, with Enron declaring bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001, and went from being the most admired company six years in a row to bankruptcy. Sherron Watkins, an Enron accountant, tried to tell Kenneth Lay something was wrong with the books and when he didn't respond, she went public and later testified in front of Congress.
In the last four months of 2001, it really got bad. While Lay and his executives were saying the company was in great shape, they were cashing in their stock before it totally collapsed. Enron got the federal government to put into law a new form of accounting called "Mark to Market," which made it easier to exploit their customers and shareholders because they were cooking the books. They were such great convincing liars they talked 96 of the big investment banks into each investing $25 million into Enron who called them "useful idiots."
On top of that, their accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, who later went bankrupt along with Enron, to pad the books. Both Enron and Arthur Andersen shredded documents to cover up their guilt. If it wasn't for Watkins and later Enron's CFO Andy Fastow, who took the Fifth Amendment in front of Congress and later testified against them and he got a 10-year sentence. One of Enron's employees, Cliff Baxter, felt so bad he killed himself, never thinking that the fraud would be uncovered.
Enron even bought a power company in Oregon and began to exploit California and other states which eventually got President G. W. Bush involved with the FERC. Enron traders had rolling blackouts and it worked for a while and people were starting to panic. Things started getting so bad, even President Bush, who took over with a surplus, ended up in debt eight years later and he, himself, had a movie made about him "Too Big to Fail" about the 2008 financial crisis.
Monroe
To the editor:
If Sen. Bernie Sanders would win the Democratic primary, which it looks like he could do, it would be because of movies like "ENRON: The Smartest Guys In the Room," "The Big Short," the miniseries on Feb. 3 and 4 on ABC TV about Madoff, along with many other books.
The subject matter brought up in the Enron story and the time it took place during the Bush-Cheney administration in 2001 before 9/11 and after 9/11, with Enron declaring bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001, and went from being the most admired company six years in a row to bankruptcy. Sherron Watkins, an Enron accountant, tried to tell Kenneth Lay something was wrong with the books and when he didn't respond, she went public and later testified in front of Congress.
In the last four months of 2001, it really got bad. While Lay and his executives were saying the company was in great shape, they were cashing in their stock before it totally collapsed. Enron got the federal government to put into law a new form of accounting called "Mark to Market," which made it easier to exploit their customers and shareholders because they were cooking the books. They were such great convincing liars they talked 96 of the big investment banks into each investing $25 million into Enron who called them "useful idiots."
On top of that, their accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, who later went bankrupt along with Enron, to pad the books. Both Enron and Arthur Andersen shredded documents to cover up their guilt. If it wasn't for Watkins and later Enron's CFO Andy Fastow, who took the Fifth Amendment in front of Congress and later testified against them and he got a 10-year sentence. One of Enron's employees, Cliff Baxter, felt so bad he killed himself, never thinking that the fraud would be uncovered.
Enron even bought a power company in Oregon and began to exploit California and other states which eventually got President G. W. Bush involved with the FERC. Enron traders had rolling blackouts and it worked for a while and people were starting to panic. Things started getting so bad, even President Bush, who took over with a surplus, ended up in debt eight years later and he, himself, had a movie made about him "Too Big to Fail" about the 2008 financial crisis.
