Enron // Current TV

Koch Industries Lackeys Admit To Manipulating Oil Prices…And Gloat About It, Too

By Yasha Levine The Kochs Give a Big Enron F_ck You to America Last week, I... more

Kelly_Balthrop
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This Economy (Short Video)

A short film made by Cool Party Guys reflecting where the Economy is at.

CoolPartyGuys
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'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' tells a personal story of ambition and corruption

In this scene from the third episode of "50 Documentaries to See Before You... more

50docs
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10 months ago
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Interview with Alex Gibney (Enron)

50 Documentaries To See Before You Die presents an exclusive interview with Alex... more

CurrentUK
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10 months ago
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Baron Black of Crossharbour still federal inmate after U.S. Supreme Court "victory"

In a stunning non-landmark ruling that is the legal equivalent of changing his name... more

foolforacigarette
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1 year ago
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Conrad Black wins zilch at U.S. Supreme Court!

In a stunning non-landmark ruling that is the legal equivalent of turning his name... more

looncanada
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Enron play to close on Broadway

A British play about the collapse of Enron is to close on Broadway after just 15... more

CarolineS
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2 years ago
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7 stories you missed this week - Sarkozy's son, Mussolini the spy, Bribing the Taliban and more

Despite how closely you followed the balloon boy, all those attacks in Pakistan and... more

afitzgerald
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The Twilight of the Elites - 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years - TIME

In the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society — whether it's General Motors, Congress, Wall Street, Major League Baseball, the Catholic Church or the mainstream media — has revealed itself to be corrupt, incompetent or both. And at the root of these failures are the people who run these institutions, the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order. In exchange for their power, status and remuneration, they are supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly. But after a cascade of scandals and catastrophes, that implicit social contract lies in ruins, replaced by mass skepticism, contempt and disillusionment.

In the wake of the implosion of nearly all sources of American authority, this new decade will have to be about reforming our institutions to reconstitute a more reliable and democratic form of authority. Scholarly research shows a firm correlation between strong institutions, accountable élites and highly functional economies; mistrust and corruption, meanwhile, feed each other in a vicious circle. If our current crisis continues, we risk a long, ugly process of de-development: higher levels of corruption and tax evasion and an increasingly fractured public sphere, in which both public consensus and reform become all but impossible.

For more than 35 years, Gallup has polled Americans about levels of trust in their institutions — Congress, banks, Big Business, public schools, etc. In 2008 nearly every single institution was at an all-time low. Banks were trusted by just 32% of the populace, down from more than 50% in 2004. Newspapers were down to 24%, from slightly below 40% at the start of the decade. And Congress was the least trusted institution of all, with only 12% of Americans expressing confidence in it. The mistrust of élites extends to élites themselves. Every year, public-relations guru Richard Edelman conducts a "trust barometer" across 22 countries, in which he surveys only highly educated, high-earning, media-attentive people. In the U.S., these people show extremely low levels of trust in government and business alike. Particularly distrusted are the superman CEOs of yore. "Chief-executive trust has just been mired in the mid- to low 20s," says Edelman. "It started off with Enron and culminates in Citi."

Such figures show that the crisis of authority extends beyond narrow ideological categories: Big Business and unions, Congress and Wall Street, organized religion and science are all viewed with skepticism. So why is it that so much of the country's leadership in so many different walks of life performed so terribly over this decade? While no single-cause theory can explain such a wide array of institutional failures, there are some themes — in particular, the concentration of power and the erosion of transparency and accountability — that extend throughout.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971117,00.html#ixzz0iQYu4JDjIn the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society —... more

Monkey_Films
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2 years ago
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Weekly Audit: Will Weak Reforms Bring on Another Crisis?

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris... more

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Effective Compliance Training Development

Conducting effective training programs is listed in the 2005 Federal Sentencing... more

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The Story of Cap & Trade

Or, "Why you can't fix a problem using the thing that created it"... more

asherp
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2 years ago
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This Decade Sucked

That's what 'Time' magazine says on it's cover, so Conor Knighton... more

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2 years ago
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Top court to hear appeal by Enron's Skilling

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will consider throwing out the convictions of former... more

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2 years ago
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Columbia Buys the Play E.N.R.O.N., About Rise and Fall of Energy Giant

oh yes. it's time. straight outta Movie News... more

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Video of Madoff surfaces

(If the video doesn't load, click on the link above)

The Guardian: Global trail of victims of the man on 17th floor.

RBS and HSBC among major banks to admit losses from $50bn Wall Street fraud

From Hollywood to Tokyo, London and Jerusalem, furious victims are demanding answers. How could a 70-year-old man on the 17th floor of a Manhattan tower block fiddle the global financial community out of $50bn?

Yesterday the sheer scale of the deceit perpetrated by Bernie Madoff was only gradually becoming clear. The genial, white-haired Wall Street figure has emerged as one of the biggest alleged financial fraudsters in history, with victims ranging from some of the world's biggest banks to individual investors who have seen their life savings wiped out.

HSBC yesterday said it had exposure of about $1bn, while Royal Bank of Scotland is staring at a possible loss of £400m.

A children's charity run by the film director Steven Spielberg invested as much as 60% of its money with Madoff. Hundreds of prominent members of Jewish communities in New York and Florida entrusted Madoff with their savings. Even the high-flying City fund manager Nicola Horlick, once dubbed "superwoman", has been caught out in the £33.5bn scam.

"This has made law enforcement and regulatory agencies in the US look absolutely ridiculous," said Bradley Simon, a New York defence lawyer specialising in white-collar crime. "How they failed to spot this is beyond me. It's incomprehensible that they couldn't somehow have got wind of it."

Madoff's inner sanctum was a suite of offices in a New York tower known as the Lipstick Building for its distinctive shape. While a seemingly legitimate stockbroking business operated from the 18th and 19th floor, Madoff reserved the 17th floor for himself and a small group of employees.

A former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange with a privileged lifestyle as a member of elite clubs in New York and Florida, he built up a reputation as an old-school banker. His company website spoke of a personal touch that "harks back to an earlier era in the financial world".

But Madoff kept his fund management business closely under wraps - even his sons, Mark and Andrew, who were senior figures at the company, appear to have been in the dark. Their father was holed up at his $9m penthouse on New York's Upper East Side yesterday.

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More at link(If the video doesn't load, click on the link above) The Guardian: Global... more

Vierotchka
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3 years ago
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Enron was the pit canary, but its death went unheeded

History is repeating itself as companies hide debt, blame the market for their failings and expect the taxpayer to pony up.

By Bethany McLean

Bad experiences are supposed to be good, in a twisted sort of way. That's because we're supposed to learn things that help us avoid the same mistakes the next time around. But it's hard to argue now that anything good came out of the bad experience called Enron. In fact, one thing that is crystal clear amid all the chaos of these days is that the lessons from Enron went unlearned - or were just forgotten.

Start with the Houston-based energy trader's notorious lack of transparency. After Enron's implosion, everyone talked about how important it was to be able to understand how a company makes money. Now raise your hand if you understand how a modern financial services firm makes money. No hands? The truth is, there is no way to understand. These companies are as opaque as Enron. Just as Enron had off balance-sheet vehicles - SIVs - that allowed it to book earnings and hide debt, Citigroup and other financial institutions had structured investment vehicles that did the same. Indeed, Citigroup had to take almost $50bn of SIVs back on to its balance sheet after they ran into trouble. It would be nice if the accounting rule-makers would grasp this basic tenet: if they want to hide it, we want to know about it.

Of course, SIVs are only a small manifestation of the deeper problem, which is the evolution of financial engineering into a dark art. Enron now seems like the canary in the coal mine. After its bankruptcy, Steve Cooper, who was in charge of restructuring it, told the Wall Street Journal his task might leave him "in a wheelchair and drooling" due to the complexity of its financial structures and the "unbelievable amount of debt accumulated around the company". Doesn't that sound like our entire financial system?

Just as Enron packaged bad investments into a private equity fund run by its chief financial officer, Wall Street packaged mortgages given to people who couldn't afford the payments into sleek new instruments called RMBS and CDOs. But Enron's machinations couldn't make the losses go away, and Wall Street's shiny acronyms can't turn a defaulted mortgage into good money.

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Click on the link for the complete article.

Over the past almost eight years, as I observed America and American politics, and as I studied Bush and his maladministration, I frequently commented that I was witnessing the Enronization of America at the hands of the Neocons, Bush, and the Corporations. Did you know that the "blueprint" for Enron's shenanigans, fudging the books, and opacity, was practically written by Dubya in the running of his various failed business enterprises? Do you remember that Enron video of Bush senior as well as Bush junior who were congratulating and backing Ken Lay?

Methinks this bailout is just another successful heist, robbing the poor to benefit a handful of the richest.

Welcome to the successful Enronization of the USA.

History is repeating itself as companies hide debt, blame the market for their... more

Vierotchka
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3 years ago
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THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN EXPLAINED !

But first *** A short explanation of how we got to where we are Today's... more

WhiteNoise
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3 years ago
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Billions to be shared by Enron shareholders

HOUSTON - Enron Corp. shareholders and investors will split about $7 billion from... more

riffhard98
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3 years ago
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1 comment

Ken who????

where is this guy?

twodee
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3 years ago
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2 comments

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