Consiracy of Fools

Just finished Conspiracy of Fools about the Enron debacle. Excellent reporting and storytelling of this abysmal journey into deceit, corruption, and greed. The guys who managed the bogus partnerships and created the aggregious accounting lies have been hoisted by their own petard and sit either charged or sentenced to their deserved jail time. The two guys who were at the top of the Enron pyramid, Lay and to a lesser degree Skilling, didn't commit accounting crimes. Their primary misdeeds were neglect and poor governance. They bred a culture that permitted and rewarded mayhem, yet they managed as if all was reasonable, honorable, and legit. They never did any due dilligence to make certain nothing underhanded or illegal was percolating within their balance sheets. They assumed everyone and everything financial was according to Hoyle. Their failing: being derelict fiduciaries and negligent stewards of the public trust. Skilling comes off as a weasel and a manipulator, typical behavior for a cornered baby boomer. Lay comes off as pathetic, flummoxed monarch who jabbers incoherantly as his kingdom crumbles. Lay's fall is more humiliating; the sense of honor he considered to be de rigueur among the executive class imploded around him. Lay's fall is very Shakesperian. There was much rotten in Denmark, indeed.