Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

This documentary was just so aggravating to watch from the perspective of the arrogance of the people involved. The fact that these individuals were able to manipulate the system the way that they did was infuriating. A must see.

Definately worth seeing, and a reasonably entertaining film. It falls well short of being a thorough examination of this grotesque episode of unregulated and amoral greed, however.

The rise and fall of Enron is the most interesting case of business corruption since the 1920s. Enron's misdeeds went far beyond the usual run-of-the-mill insider trading and accounting improprieties that most corporate scandals amount to. Enron was unique in the scale and scope of its corruption: employees, banks, accounting firms, journalists, governments (state, local, federal, even foreign!) were all implicated in its crimes. Except for its coverage of the California blackout, however, Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room falls short of chronicling the mechanics of how a modest pipeline company turned into a criminal conspiracy to rob the public, the government, shareholders, and finally its own employees. The documentary lingers for over an hour on CEO Jeff Skilling, little more than a self-deluded, greedy 'enabler' who turned a blind eye to the crimes of others-provided they made money for the company. Meanwhile, the film spends about 15 minutes on Andy Fastow, Enron's CFO a... Read more

Worth seeing. The Enron story is an unbelievable story of greed - not just by the Skillings and Lays, but by their bankers, lawyers, accountants, customers, investors, and traders. There was so much cash being thrown off by the stock's meteoric rise, that everybody involved was content to take their place at the trough, and ignore their ethics. I was blown away by the price California paid for Enron's greed. Having lived through the rolling blackouts a couple of years ago, I had always found it extremely strange that the State would suddenly run out of power, especially in the winter. Well it turns out, a desperate Enron was driving its traders to convince power station operators to shut down, in order to drive the price of electricity up. Enron would profit from the increased prices, and more lucratively, gamble that the price of electricity would go up. These profits allowed Enron to maintain the facade of a financially healthy company. In California, businesses were being sh... Read more