Enron movie

I checked out "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" this weekend over at Theater N.

In case you haven't heard, it's documentary that exposes the disgusting and corrupt side of Enron (and corporate thieves like them, such as World Com).

Overall, it's a pretty intriguing film that illustrates how Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling led company employees and investors on a wild ride of deceived and multi-million dollar scams at the expense of everyone involved.

In short, their plan was simple: Keep stock prices as high as possible.

The methods used were a little more complex including accounting techniques that allowed them to put non-existent future profits on the books, manipulating energy resources (including causing deliberate blackouts in California) and many others that can't be explained away in a paragraph or two.

Once one fraudulent scheme began to fail, Enron quickly created another. All the while Lay and Skilling faked the company's performance - and fooled everyone. As the inevitable collapse of the company neared, Lay, Skilling and other Enron top execs cashed in their stocks for millions upon millions.

They urged employees and the public at large to invest in Enron stock, even though they knew it would be worth nothing. And sure enough, the company imploded and left thousands of employees and investors, many of whom had invested the bulk of their 401K with stocks worth basically nothing.

If the film has any fault, it's that it doesn't successfully illustrate the intricacies of Enron's deceipt. But that may be based on the fact that Enron's tactics were so complicated in their own right.

Still, there's no escaping the fact that Lay and Skilling ripped off common people, like you and I, and took their life savings and retirement funds and pissed them away.

It's an outrage shit like this can happen. Imagine if the company you worked for urged you to invest in their stock, then stole all your money as it went down the shitter, leaving you with a 401K and stock portfolio worth nothing.