Video website: www.youtube.com Title: Enron Scandal (Emmy Award)
Watching this short video angers me. I know that all things on the internet are not true, but how can people differentiate what is right from wrong. After listening to the tapes, it angers me to know that people in this world are so greedy that the welfare of others does not concern them.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-enron.htm
Enron's story of deception is unforgettable. Enron started in 1985 with a merger of two natural gas companies. At that time, Kenneth Lay was the Chief Executive of Enron. In the early 1990's, Enron was considered one of the most powerful and wealthiest corporations in the world. With government deregulation of power utilities, Enron was allowed huge profits during the 1990's. This opened many possibilities for Enron to expand. Soon they were involved in electric power production, paper production, oil by-products, internet, and shipping. However, behind large success is a flaw. This flaw was Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow.
Skilling and Fastow soon conjugated a plan to hide business losses from stockholders and the public. To sustain the image of increase revenues, Enron created a plan consisting of creative accounting, fraud, and control of information. The California blackout raised many questions concerning the success of Enron and how true the company's ethics were.
In 2001, the SEC began their own investigation and soon removed Skilling and Fastow from their positions. Investors and stockholders left Enron forcing the company to file bankruptcy. Kenneth Lay died in 2006 before he was sentenced, Arthur Anderson
accounting firm shut down, and Skilling and Fastow were still in prison in 2010.
In the end, between Arthur Andersen and Enron, 90,000 employees lost their jobs due to someone else's greed. Enron employees lost $2 billion dollars while the stockholders lost another $70 million.
