Download or read book Following the Money written by George Benston and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication A few years ago, Americans held out their systems of corporate governance and financial disclosure as models to be emulated by the rest of the world. But in late 2001 U.S. policymakers and corporate leaders found themselves facing the largest corporate accounting scandals in American history. The spectacular collapses of Enron and Worldcom—as well as the discovery of accounting irregularities at other large U.S. companies—seemed to call into question the efficacy of the entire system of corporate governance in the United States. In response, Congress quickly enacted a comprehensive package of reform measures in what has come to be known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ followed by making fundamental changes to their listing requirements. The private sector acted as well. Accounting firms—watching in horror as one of their largest, Arthur Andersen, collapsed after a criminal conviction for document shredding—tightened their auditing procedures. Stock analysts and ratings agencies, hit hard by a series of disclosures about their failings, changed their practices as well. Will these reforms be enough? Are some counterproductive? Are other shortcomings in the disclosure system still in need of correction? These are among the questions that George Benston, Michael Bromwich, Robert E. Litan, and Alfred Wagenhofer address in Following the Money. While the authors agree that the U.S. system of corporate disclosure and governance is in need of change, they are concerned that policymakers may be overreacting in some areas and taking actions in others that may prove to be ineffective or even counterproductive. Using the Enron case as a point of departure, the authors argue that the major problem lies not in the accounting and auditing standards themselves, but in the system of enforcing those standards.

Download or read book Financial Oversight of Enron written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report of Investigation by the Special Investigative Committee of the Board of Directors of Enron Corporation written by William C. Powers and published by . This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addresses transactions between Enron Corp. & investment partnerships created & managed by Andrew Fastow, Enron's former Exec. V.P. & CFO, & by other Enron employees who worked with Fastow. Explains the substance of the most significant transactions & highlights their most important accounting, corp. governance, mgmt. oversight, & public disclosure issues. Chapters: Exec. Summary & Conclusions; Intro.; Background: Enron & Special Purpose Entities; Chewco; LJM History & Governance: Rhythms Netconnections; The Raptors; Other Transactions with LJM; Oversight by the Board of Directors & Management; & Related-Party Disclosure Issues.

Download or read book Power Failure written by Mimi Swartz and published by Currency. This book was released on 2004-03-09 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

Download or read book Enron and the Powers Report written by Cheryl de Mesa Graziano and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Accounting finance Lessons of Enron written by Harold Bierman and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2008 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. The Enron success and failure -- 2. Enron as of 31 December 2000 -- 3. First six months of 2001: before the storm -- 4. Sherron Watkins' letter to Kenneth L. Lay -- 5. The clouds burst -- 6. The 100-year flood -- 7. JEDI and Chewco: not the movie -- 8. LJM1 and rhythms -- 9. LJM2 and Raptors I and III -- 10. LJM2 and Raptors II and IV -- 11. Other transactions -- 12. The collapse -- 13. The indictment of lay and skilling -- 14. The trial -- 15. A slice of the Skilling-Lay trial -- 16. The Skilling-Lay trial: fair or foul? -- 17. Mark to market accounting: feeding the growth requirement -- 18. Concluding observations

Download or read book Enron written by Nancy B. Rapoport and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This law school text explores the Enron debacle from a variety of different aspects. Essays analyze the business-government interactions and decisions that laid the foundations for Enron's growth and subsequent demise. Other essays describe and detail the complex web of partnerships and accounting tricks used by Enron to hide bad news and project good news. While other essays focus on the ethical and legal dimensions of the Enron crisis, and their lessons for business and law students, as well as for society.

Download or read book How Companies Lie written by Larry Elliott and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2002-06-25 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The questions investors need to ask . . . The answers corporate America must give about the true facts of corporate performance and value. During the 2001 baseball season, when games were played at Enron Field in Houston, a typical reaction was: “What the hell is Enron and what do they do?” Now we know more about the executives and inner workings of today’s best-known rogue company than we ever imagined. But it turns out that Enron is just the most egregious case of a disturbing trend and the seemingly unstoppable tendency of some capitalists to destroy capitalism. Something like 50 percent of American households directly support the markets by investing in stocks and mutual funds. But some of the people entrusted with the responsibility for maintaining and managing the corporation—senior executives, boards of directors, auditing firms—have become engaged in what can only be called economic terrorism. Enron, Sunbeam, Global Crossing, and Waste Management are but the tip of the iceberg. Luckily, there are ways for investors to spot corporate smoke and mirrors and challenge the players. Larry Elliott and Richard Schroth show investors the questions that need to be asked to get a handle on the performance reality of companies. The corporate world, in turn, needs a return to reality and authenticity in business operations, finance, accounting, and deal making. This need for performance reality is not an issue confined to a few companies who engage in unethical and illegal behavior. The technological pace of change, along with increasingly complicated business transactions, makes global markets more and more complex. The assumption, however, has always been that we have the management competence and rigor to ensure shareholder value. Enron is definitive proof that the way companies are run—the gap between what they say is reality and what is really the case—is frightening. And this gap has severe implications for millions of people who are employees of and investors in these companies. Using Enron as the touchstone, Larry Elliott and Richard Schroth show investors how to think about and measure the candor of corporations, the Wall Street players, and their supporters.

Download or read book Pipe Dreams written by Robert Bryce and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2004-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures; it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humor, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball.

Download or read book What Went Wrong at Enron written by Peter C. Fusaro and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2002-10-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy answer guide to the difficult questions surrounding Enron What Went Wrong at Enron explains the critical steps, transactions, and events that led to the demise of a company that was once considered one of the most innovative corporations in the United States. Energy risk management expert Peter Fusaro gets inside Enron and provides a coherent account of the who, why, where, and when of this corporate debacle, without sacrificing the complexity of what has happened. Enron has been front-page news for months, but confusion still remains about what actually happened. What Went Wrong at Enron is written for readers who find themselves wondering what exactly is an energy trading company, what was the sequence of events that caused the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history, and what does this all mean for me.

Download or read book Report of Investigation of Enron Corporation and Related Entities Regarding Federal Tax and Compensation Issues and Policy Recommendations written by and published by Joint Committee. This book was released on 2003 with total page 756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cold Hungry and in the Dark written by Bill Powers and published by New Society Publisher. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An energy industry insider delivers hard truths about the reality of fracking. Conventional wisdom has North America entering a new era of energy abundance thanks to shale gas. But has industry been honest? Cold, Hungry and in the Dark argues that declining productivity combined with increasing demand will trigger a crisis that will cause prices to skyrocket, damage the economy, and have a profound impact on the lives of nearly every North American. Relying on faulty science, bought-and-paid-for-white papers masquerading as independent research and “industry consultants,” the “shale promoters” have vastly overstated the viable supply of shale gas resources for their own financial gain. This startling exposé, written by an industry insider, suggests that the stakes involved in the Enron scandal might seem like lunch money in comparison to the bursting of the natural gas bubble. Exhaustively researched and rigorously documented, Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: · Puts supply-and-demand trends under a microscope · Provides overwhelming evidence of the absurdity of the one hundred-year supply myth · Suggests numerous ways to mitigate the upcoming natural gas price spike The mainstream media has told us that natural gas will be cheap and plentiful for decades, when nothing could be further from the truth. Forewarned is forearmed. Cold, Hungry and in the Dark is vital reading for anyone concerned about the inevitable economic impact of our uncertain energy future. “Powers’s step-by-step dismantling of the abundance myth ought to alarm policymakers, corporate managers, investors, business owners, and concerned citizens alike.”—Kurt Cobb, author of Prelude and contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Download or read book Enron and World Finance written by P. Dembinski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-12-16 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four years after the debacle, the term 'Enron' has earned its place in the everyday vocabulary of business ethics. Hardly anyone understands the business intricacies of what really happened with the sophisticated energy conglomerate. Even fewer are those able to envision, beyond the business case, the ethical questions and dilemmas facing actors at any one stage of the drama. Using the collapse of Enron as a case study, this book not only shows how and where ethics came into play, but also draws lessons and discusses possible remedies that may prevent the whole financial system from falling apart as a result of either excessive greed or over-regulation.

Download or read book The Smartest Guys in the Room written by Bethany McLean and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 846 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century? Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money? Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall. 'The best book about the Enron debacle to date' BusinessWeek 'The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track' USA Today 'Well-reported and well-written' Warren Buffett

Download or read book Enron written by Lucy Prebble and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only difference between me and the people judging me is they weren't smart enough to do what we did. One of the most infamous scandals in financial history becomes a theatrical epic. At once a case study and an allegory, the play charts the notorious rise and fall of Enron and its founding partners Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, who became 'the most vilified figure from the financial scandal of the century.' This Student Edition features expert and helpful annotation, including a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well as a list of suggested reading and questions for further study and a review of performance history. Mixing classical tragedy with savage comedy, Enron follows a group of flawed men and women in a narrative of greed and loss which reviews the tumultuous 1990s and casts a new light on the financial turmoil in which the world finds itself in 2009. The play was Lucy Prebble's first work for the stage since her debut work The Sugar Syndrome, winner of the George Devine and Critic's Circle Awards for Most Promising New Playwright. Produced by Headlong, Enron premiered at Chichester's Minerva Theatre on 11 July 2009 and opened at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September, before transferring to London's West End and to Broadway in 2010.

Download or read book Anatomy of Greed written by Brian Cruver and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid, Brian Cruver epitomized the Enron employee when he first entered the company's Houston office; and from day one he found himself a cog in the wheel of a venal greed machine. For the next nine months, he would witness firsthand the now-infamous corporate tragedy that he relates in these ruthlessly honest, often hilarious, and frequently disturbing pages. Here are the accounting tricks, insider stock trades, grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships, and death dance to bankruptcy. Equally revealing, though, are Cruver's descriptions of everyday life at Enron: the cocky wheeling and dealing, intraoffice relationships, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that committed Enronians to the propaganda of flawed executives like Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow. Out of their wreckage, Cruver has fashioned an arresting and cautionary morality tale for our time. Anatomy of Greed was the basis for the CBS-TV movie The Crooked E: a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the last days in the strange life of one of the world's richest, riskiest, and most corrupt corporations. Eight pages of telling photographs are included.

Download or read book The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report written by Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.