The film opens with a scene where Enron executive Cliff Baxter commits suicide, then travels back in time to discover the truth behind the collapse of the Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company’s top execs amongst many other pitfalls.
The film then begins with a profile of Ken Lay, the founder of Enron. The company soon becomes involved in scandal and crime when Lay encourages the outrageous risk taking and profit skimming of two oil traders in Enron’s Valhalla office because they were bringing a lot of money into the company. It shows the story of corrupt capitalism primarily focussing on Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow.
This gives Enron the ability to portray itself as a profitable and stable company even though it isn’t. They were able to hide debts by essentially having the company loan money to itself and using California’s deregulation of the electricity market to manipulate the state’s energy supply. Lay also imposes a review committee whereby employees are graded and annual layoffs are made to the bottom fifteen per cent, making it a brutal and highly competitive working environment.
This company didn’t appear to produce anything yet was able to quickly rise to become the seventh largest corporation in America, and then, eventually, dramatically crumble. The film suggests that the Enron scandal is not an abnormal or unusual case but is an inevitable result of free-market capitalism.
This is a chilling documentary with a fascinating and frightening insight into the intricacies of high finances and the business world. It shows the callous world in which unfortunate victims have their lifelong pensions completely wiped out to fulfil the greed of business men who are willing to deceive, scam and commit a crime in order to ‘win’…
