Power Failure

By 2000, the Enron Corporation was a colossus. Over 16 years it had transformed itself from a stodgy Texas pipeline company into the world's biggest energy trader, with annual revenues of $100 billion. From its glittering skyscraper in Houston Enron hustled deals in the world's energy, from natural gas to wind power, from Third World refineries to Britain's Wessex Water. Its share price increased by 1700 per cent; its aggressively casual staff prided themselves on their ruthless competitiveness, lavish wages, and obligatory Porsche Boxster. Even Enron's skewed "E" logo seemed to revel in a jaunty angle from conventional business reality. A year later, at the end of 2001, Enron imploded. Thousands of staff were laid off, their pensions - invested in its stocks - worthless, the banks were exposed for hundreds of millions of dollars, and suddenly President Bush's close friendship with Enron's founder looked unwise. It has been an ongoing news story ever since.
Now, drawing closely on the testimony of Sherron Watkins, the vice-president first to blow the whistle on its dubious accounting methods, Mimi Swartz has written a full account of the Enron debacle, showing how its whole mercenary culture was just as much to blame.