The funniest thing is that this is both a witch hunt and a bald-faced example of corporate greed gone haywire.
As a result, confidence in the market is lost because investors feel "if you're going to lie, at least make the numbers work. If you can't make them work, find a political solution. If you can't find a political solution, then we're all screwed." Investors (the less savvy ones) don't understand that politics is what screwed up Enron in the first place. If they'd concentrated on their core businesses that got them going, rather than focusing on trading (which required the use of huge amounts of political capital), they wouldn't be where they are.
As for the cover ups, I love when people paint the "Bush" picture because they forget a number of major points. Enron got its biggest boost from the Texas Railroad Commission under Ann Richards (and this remains Bush's biggest tie to the company, as he was governor), Clinton played golf quite often with Lay, and Rubin lobbied for Enron as it began to unravel.
There's enough political blame to go around than to just point to the current administration, which did something NO OTHER Admin would likely do - let it go bust. That was the bravest political stance they could take.
Unfortunately, now they have to put some of these snakes in prison in order to make future investors feel like there is a punishment waiting for liars like these asses. |
