Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room [DVD]

I have been going through some of my old books and DVDs and came across this little beauty, which took me down memory lane to my own experiences in the banking world. As a teen, I exposed a fraud in the branch I was working. Instead of being rewarded for my vigilance, I was bullied and threatened, and a bloke allegedly from the Met came and gave me a good talking to. Although I stayed in banking for a few more years, the experience had eroded my confidence, I was always conscious of being watched, and I was never promoted.Recently one of the broadsheets cited yet another example of a pensioner being conned and threatened into perpetrating a fraud. Puzzlingly, his bankers played along, and it was only the intervention of the man's son that ensured his father was reimbursed. In the comments following this article, people were asking why don't investigative journalists find out what's going on. The people behind these sophisticated scams are clever and in-the-know. They are not cut from the same cloth as the Fifties gangs, whose thugs basically went round beating people up. The banks know more than they are letting on. IMHO there is a link with the callers who ring you out of the blue trying to convince you that you had a car accident. Somebody is selling your phone number to these scammers. I was targeted a number of times by a firm who tried to bully me into saying 'yes' on the phone to their questions, which evidently can trigger off an identity fraud. Most people who manage their personal accounts are savvy enough to be on the ball, but we all have our weaker moments, and these professional scammers know it. Be careful out there, people!

I do not know how someone could enjoy story of theft and American economic acrobatic Friedmanism and Reganism executed by $ fellow travellers. This is what the whole economic civilization has to chew . In China such operators would be shot and usable organs would be sold to poor USA for recycling - would it be not fair ? Bush Rumsfeld Cunda Rice Ashcroft , Soros , Wolfowitz Pearle Lieberman all are the same they should be hanged .

I watched this after reading 'Conspiracy of Fools' by Kurt Eichenwald. I wanted to see what the characters looked and sounded like. Skilling definitely sounded impressive, but as it turned out, managed to inspire misguided confidence.I was a bit disappointed because it brought home to me the difference between books and films. Books can carry huge amounts of information, films only skim the surface. Watching this felt like reading the summary on the back of a book jacket.Andy Fastow features a lot in the book, but he's only a minor character in the film. They focus more on the traders in the film with the recordings of the telephone calls that revealed their sharp practices.Bethany McLean, the journalist who exposed the Enron hype, features heavily in this film. She's an inspiring figure.I'm glad I read the book first.

Very enjoyable and informative documentary covering one of the largest frauds in corporate history. Enron were an energy company with big ideas - as they failed to meet their ambitions they employed numerous artifices and frauds to hide the truth until it all imploded in spectacular fashion. The DVD features footage of all the main characters this drama, and makes clear that even the smartest of people are happy to fool themselves ( and everyone else) at times - and it is all the rest of us who take the pain for their arrogance and hubris

It is bad enough that a company can do this sort of thing. It is stunning how all the companies that are supposed to act as the checks and balances completely failed apart from taking huge sums because if they don't the guy down the road is willing to ignore these things. As a documentary, it should be compulsory viewing for all in financial management of any degree.

This is a fascinating story of the guys who fooled people for a long time and then finally got found out, but it is a documentary, so, although entertaining, it is not quite as much a Saturday evening treat as a Monday evening film of interest.

I thought this was a film, which I've seen but can't remember it's name. Instead it's a documentary of the whole rotten ediface of this scandal. Blows the lid on the biggest business scandal of recent decades..

A bewildering account of the downfall of a major corporate, which you couldn't make up if you tried. It's all old news in a way, of course, with corporate corruption being as old as the hills. What modern communications and media gives us here though is a compelling insight into staggeringly brazen corruption from those who thought they could just keep getting away with it. Fascinating watching.