AN ERA OF NEAR MADNESS
"As the fraud is perpetuated all the various artifices and all the lies begin to convince the ringmaster himself that it's this own bizarre reality…As long as you can keep the perception going, it really isn't a fraud."
Recently, I was browsing an article in the New York Times that I really didn't think I wanted to read, because it dealt with subject matter that I don't usually write about--corporate piracy and the robber-barons who get away with it at a terrible cost to the serfs in their little fiefdoms--you and me.
Well, okay, I write about it SOMETIMES.
But as my daughter has accused…I do have an obsession with the war in Iraq, but as she kindly added, I have good reason. Still, in spite of all the distressing and disturbing news lately about the war, I do tend to sit up now and then when reading something I don't normally read and go, Huh.
The article in the May 26, 2006 Times was called, "In Enron Case, a Verdict on an Era," by Kurt Eichenwald.
And in the second paragraph, the lead line read, "The Enron Case will forever stand as the ultimate reflection of an era of near madness in finance, a time in the 1990's when self-certitude and spin became a substitute for financial analysis and coherent business models. Controls broke down and management deteriorated as arrogance overrode careful judgment, allowing senior executives to blithely push aside their critics…the case painted a broad and disturbing portrait of a corporate culture poisoned by hubris, leading ultimately to a recklessness that placed the business's survival at risk."
Click.
Just like that, everything seemed to fall into place for me about Bush-world and the current one-sided Republican insanity of our government.
Bush is the CEO, and the United States is Enron--or at least, the government part of it run by Bush the CEO and his aiders and abetters--the Republican rubber-stamp Congress.
The whole culture that pervades Washington, D.C. comes from that same corporate world as Enron. Every single Cabinet member and most of the heads of departments that Bush has appointed were once CEO's of companies--including Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.
And we all know what Dick Cheney used to do for a living, and what George Bush used to do back in Midland, Texas, before his Daddy put him in office, but more about that later.
Yeah, I might sound like a near-mad liberal, but bear with me and read the proof I present and then you decide. Way I see it, it's just too damn bad we can't fire the CEO of our own beleaguered country; at least, as long as the foxes are securely in charge of guarding the henhouse.
The first quote, about the ringmaster, came from the Academy-award nominated documentary: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. A stockbroker said it. (I was taking notes too fast to copy down his name.) He used to work for Merryl-Lynch, until he was caught telling his clients that Enron--the stock-market darling at the time--was not a good bet.
Just a few months later, Enron was bankrupt, taking down thousands of shareholders with it.
Recently, I was browsing an article in the New York Times that I really didn't think I wanted to read, because it dealt with subject matter that I don't usually write about--corporate piracy and the robber-barons who get away with it at a terrible cost to the serfs in their little fiefdoms--you and me.
Well, okay, I write about it SOMETIMES.
But as my daughter has accused…I do have an obsession with the war in Iraq, but as she kindly added, I have good reason. Still, in spite of all the distressing and disturbing news lately about the war, I do tend to sit up now and then when reading something I don't normally read and go, Huh.
The article in the May 26, 2006 Times was called, "In Enron Case, a Verdict on an Era," by Kurt Eichenwald.
And in the second paragraph, the lead line read, "The Enron Case will forever stand as the ultimate reflection of an era of near madness in finance, a time in the 1990's when self-certitude and spin became a substitute for financial analysis and coherent business models. Controls broke down and management deteriorated as arrogance overrode careful judgment, allowing senior executives to blithely push aside their critics…the case painted a broad and disturbing portrait of a corporate culture poisoned by hubris, leading ultimately to a recklessness that placed the business's survival at risk."
Click.
Just like that, everything seemed to fall into place for me about Bush-world and the current one-sided Republican insanity of our government.
Bush is the CEO, and the United States is Enron--or at least, the government part of it run by Bush the CEO and his aiders and abetters--the Republican rubber-stamp Congress.
The whole culture that pervades Washington, D.C. comes from that same corporate world as Enron. Every single Cabinet member and most of the heads of departments that Bush has appointed were once CEO's of companies--including Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.
And we all know what Dick Cheney used to do for a living, and what George Bush used to do back in Midland, Texas, before his Daddy put him in office, but more about that later.
Yeah, I might sound like a near-mad liberal, but bear with me and read the proof I present and then you decide. Way I see it, it's just too damn bad we can't fire the CEO of our own beleaguered country; at least, as long as the foxes are securely in charge of guarding the henhouse.
The first quote, about the ringmaster, came from the Academy-award nominated documentary: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. A stockbroker said it. (I was taking notes too fast to copy down his name.) He used to work for Merryl-Lynch, until he was caught telling his clients that Enron--the stock-market darling at the time--was not a good bet.
Just a few months later, Enron was bankrupt, taking down thousands of shareholders with it.
posted by Deanie Mills at 7:18 AM
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