Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2004) - R 4 Stars

This one will keep you glued to your television, make you angry as hell and keep you rewinding the tape to make sure you heard exactly what you just did. How does one of the most successful companies in American history go from being on top to bankruptcy? LIE!!!

This documentary exposes all the players for what their roles were and gives a lot of information that most people might not know about. I thought I would just list some of the facts here from the movie because it is really so informational. It's amazing how long Enron was able to get away with looking like they were a legit profitable company. I highly recommend seeing this documentary to get a whole picture on just where all these "good old boys" come from.

Enron:

*Started way back with the Vahalla scandal of 1987 when Louis Borget was president. He started forming fraud companies like Mr. M. Yass short for MY ASS.
*Ranked # 7 in the country and a net worth of over $70,000,000,000.00 <-- yes that's billion dollars. *The largest corporation to contribute to the 1st George W. Bush campaign with $300,000,000.00 over 4 years. the most significant relationship between a president and a corporation in American history. *While Andy Fastow - Chief Financial Officer, was in charge, over 200 billion dollars in pensions disappeared. *Directly responsible for oil prices today as their deregulation allows gas prices to float with the currency of the market. *In 1992, Enron involved in the stock market buying up natural gas. *California's deregulation of the electricity market was used to manipulate the state's energy supply. *Implemented the Rank and Yank process - 10% of the work force was fired for not making enough good trades. *Two traders, gambled away in oil all of the reserve capital of Enron. *Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, Fortune 500 magazine reporters exposed the company for it's fraud. *Lou Pi has his own expense account for the strippers he loved to visit so much. He left Enron with 250 million dollars, divorced his wife and married one of his strippers. *The CEO of EES was the 2nd largest land owner in Colorado. *John Olson, a stock analyst, was fired for not playing their game correctly. *Pump and Dump was formed. Pump up value of stock then dump it. *Ken Price sold 53 million in shares. *Ken Ley sold 300 million in shares. *Jeff Skilling sold 200 million in shares. *Chris Baxter sold 35 millions in shares. *30 billion in debt - Andy Fastow's job is to keep stock prices up. *Fastow buries the debt in fake companies like Raptors, Jedi and LJM and manages to net himself 45 million. *96 banks invested some as much as 25 million each. *Stock declines - Jeff Skilling steps down as CEO for emotional reasons August 14, 2001. *Oct. 23, 2001 - Ken lay takes over company and while he gives employees a pep talk rally, SEC investigates while Arthur Anderson (Enron's accounting firm) shreds over 1 ton of Enron's files. * Oct. 24, 2001 - Andy Fastow made to look like the fall guy for taking 45 million from company and pleads the 5th. *Ken Lay pleads he had no such knowledge of Fastow's wrong doings. *Chris Baxter commits suicide in his car. *May 30, 2001 - Gas prices are $4.19 for regular at most gas stations. I was livid after watching this movie. Magnolia Pictures
Director: Alex Gibney
Writer: Alex Gibney
Producers: Jason Kliot, Alex Gibney, Susan Motamed

I watched 5/08