REAL ART VIDEO WEEK!
ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM

From Wikipedia:

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 documentary film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history.

The film examines the collapse of the Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company's top executives; it also shows the involvement of the Enron traders in the California electricity crisis.

And

As an analysis of corruption in corporations the film examines corporate culture of Enron and the problems that would later culminate in its bankruptcy. The movie presents two mechanisms for motivating a vastly immoral and profit-driven corporate culture; namely the vitality curve and the Milgram experiment.

The vitality curve is an idea of constant competition in the work place. Individuals are driven to out-perform each other wherever possible because the employees doing worst in a particular field will be fired. Enron constantly hired new staff because even with record profits it was firing people for making less than 1000 times what they were being paid. The atmosphere of the work place caused people to not only disregard the law, but also to act competitively in breaking the law.

More here.

This film is fucking great. I watched it last night. While the depravity of Enron's ruling elite is amazing enough, what's truly mind boggling is how the rest of the corporate world was ready and willing to be duped by these guys. I mean, big time stock analysts, who had absolutely no idea how the eventually failed Houston company was able to make the staggering profits it was stating every quarter, were recommending it as a good stock purchase. Again and again.

Wall Street idiots.

Anyway, check it out:


via videosift.com

Maybe the market doesn't always know best.

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