The Enron scandal is worthy of the highest level of scrutiny, both because of the enormity of the crimes that may have been committed and because of what the largest bankruptcy in American history has already begun to reveal about the weaknesses in our nation's corporate structures and regulatory oversight.
Adam Cohen
Pete Wilson deregulated energy as a pay out to Enron, and we blamed Gray Davis.
Adam McKay
Enron Field in Houston, the Trans World Dome in St. Louis and PSINet Stadium in Baltimore are just three of the modern-day coliseums named for companies that have found new homes in bankruptcy court.
Alex Berenson
Enron had already collapsed and filed for bankruptcy protection by the beginning of 2002. But despite complaints from short sellers that corporations had used accounting gimmickry to inflate their profits, many investors thought the crisis at Enron was an isolated case.
Most unfortunately, Enron's plunge into bankruptcy court also cost many of its rank-and-file employees their savings.
I'm a good learner. I can dig in. I knew nothing about mark-to-market accounting when I started the 'Enron' film.
Alex Gibney
I remember when I did my Enron film, my executive producers at the time felt very strongly that I should mock the Enron executives more viciously because everybody wanted that moment.
People are treating the Stewart case as seriously as Enron when it's really over trivia.
Allan Sloan
I think that the failures of Enron and WorldCom and other companies are partially failures of investors to recognize companies that are selling for a thousand times nothing, but chances are they may be worth only that.
Arthur Levitt
Before Enron, I think people were a bit more naive about the way things worked, and I think Enron pulled the curtain back on unsavoury practices that turned out to be a lot more widespread.
Bethany McLean
If you look at the great frauds of all time, Enron had that phantom trading floor. What Herbalife has is it has phantom or fictitious customers.
Bill Ackman
Early 2000s, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric.
Elizabeth Warren
Because the sad fact is that the Enron Corporation and others manipulated with unfortunately great effect the energy market in the West Coast starting in 2000.
Jay Inslee
Enron and 9/11 marked the end of an era of individual freedom and the beginning of personal responsibility.
Jeffrey R. Immelt
Are you familiar with 9/11? Building 7? You know what was in there? All the Enron stuff. I guess that building went down on its own.
Jesse Ventura
You're used to seeing values listed on waiting-room walls. Communication, integrity, excellence, and respect. Those were actually Enron's values.
John Collison
When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations.
Julian Assange
There was loose talk of Enron management practices and reminders of a scandal at the University of Toronto, when a big donor corporation, Eli Lilly, was said to have vetoed the appointment of an academic who doubted the effectiveness of Prozac.
Justin Cartwright
Buying only what you know can end in disaster. Just think about Enron's employees and business partners, the 'locals' who bought lots of its stock because they thought they were in the know.
Kenneth Fisher
I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.
Kenneth Lay
In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.
But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.
But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.
You don't want another Enron? Here's your law: If a company, can't explain, in one sentence, what it does... it's illegal.
'Power Play' is a morality tale for our post-Enron world and - not incidentally - wildly entertaining. Nothing wrong with that.
We will not rest until the wooden stake is punched through the heart of the Enron lawsuit against us.
By incentivizing Wall Street players to sniff out inefficient or corrupt companies and bet against them, short-selling acts as a sort of policing system; legal short-sellers have been instrumental in helping expose firms like Enron and WorldCom.
Ken Lay has, does and will continue to accept responsibility for the fall of Enron. He was the man at the controls. But failure is not a crime.
Things that have happened with Enron and companies like that, where they've squandered their employees' pension funds, I think it has brought a new level of anxiety. People don't feel like they can trust their employer.
Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.
The subculture of felons is in great vogue among adolescents. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and so forth allow us Republicans to say to America's young people, 'We be thugs.' The GOP may capture the youth vote at last.
What Enron was doing, what caused investors to embrace it in a rapture of baffled awe, was hiding debt.
If it were not for government regulation of big corporations, executives at companies like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, they could have cheated investors out of millions.
Deception can cost billions. Think Enron, Madoff, the mortgage crisis. Or in the case of double agents and traitors, like Robert Hanssen or Aldrich Ames, lies can betray our country. They can compromise our security. They can undermine democracy. They can cause the deaths of those that defend us.
Enron - although an extreme case - is hardly the only company with a hollow set of values.
Bush began helping Enron in the eighties.
Most of the evil of the world comes about not out of evil motives, but somebody saying 'get with the program, be a team player;' this is what we saw at Enron, this is what we saw in the Nixon administration with their scandal.
You know Texas is - even more now that Enron has bit the dust - it's held up on the back of small businesses.
I've never commented much about my experience at Enron except to say, when I was there, it was a much more pipeline and asset-oriented company.
During the Enron debacle, it was workers who took the pounding, not bankers. Not only did Enron employees lose their jobs, many lost their retirement savings. That's because they were at the bottom of the investing food chain.
Ken Lay, the disgraced former chairman of Enron, found a way to escape his legal problems: He died after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges.
At the height of the Enron mania, the company's market value was $65 billion. Once the dust cleared, the final value was $0.
The collapse of Enron was devastating to tens of thousands of people and shook the public's confidence in corporate America.
Simply stated, sometimes journalists can only get their information from informants who must remain anonymous in order to protect their careers and sometimes even their lives: Watergate: Confidential sources. The Pentagon Papers: Confidential sources. Enron: Confidential sources.
I happen to represent Enron here in Houston. We have many good corporate citizens here in Houston. Enron happened to have been one.
