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Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
The Leader of the Mob reacts
You know, it's not every day that a federal appellate court concludes that a newspaper's coverage of a particular event was a major factor in the creation of a presumption of community prejudice. But that's precisely what the Fifth...
The Chronicle's continuing Enron hypocrisy
Being generally an optimistic sort, I keep thinking that the financial crisis of the past year or so will eventually prompt the Houston Chronicle to reconsider its generally biased coverage of the demise of Enron over the past seven...
Permanent Enron myopia
Inasmuch as what took place with regard to Enron earlier in the decade has now happened to much of Wall Street, the vacuity of the Houston Chronicle's coverage of Enron-related matters has become clear. Nevertheless, Chronicle business columnist Loren...
The Goldman Sachs bailout
Why do most pundits continue to characterize the billions of dollars that the federal government has loaned to AIG over the past six months as "the AIG bailout?" As this WSJ weekend article and this subsequent Bloomberg article note, the...
IMG's bad week
The late Mark McCormack must be spinning in his grave. His baby has had a very bad week. McCormack was the attorney who parleyed his friendship with PGA Tour star Arnold Palmer to create the world's leading management firm...
Those pesky unexpected consequences
On the heels of this post from a couple of days ago that addressed Tyler Cowen's recent NY Times op-ed that speculated that expectations generated from the 1998 government bailout of Long Term Capital Management hedge fund were not...
Making sense of Madoff
Loren Steffy, the Houston Chronicle's business columnist, has been having a hard time lately. You will recall that Steffy was one of the leaders of the mainstream media lynch mob that embraced the myth of the Greed Narrative in...
Refracting Enron myopia
One of the more entertaining aspects of the current Wall Street financial crisis has been reading how some of the business columnists have been interpreting it. Take, for example, Houston Chronicle business columnist, Loren Steffy. You may remember him...
That other hurricane
So, while the Houston area was enduring a hurricane, the financial markets were enduring one, too. As with Enron and Bear Stearns, the demise of Lehman Brothers reinforces the inherently fragile nature of a trust-based business (related posts here). ...
Cutting the Pai
Former Enron executive Lou Pai's recent settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that the Greed Narrative is still embraced by much of mainstream American society. Take, for example, Charles Kuffner's reaction: Reading this story reminds me why...
The latest Enron book
Harvard Business School issued this press release and interview yesterday of Malcolm S. Salter, the Harvard professor who has written the latest book -- Innovation Corrupted: The Origins and Legacy of Enron's Collapse (Harvard University Press) -- in what...
The obligation to throw in the towel
So, the shoe finally dropped on the two Bear Stearns executives who managed the two Bear hedge funds that imploded in mid-2007. A copy of the indictment is here. As I read the indictment, the government is contending that...
Criminalizing Failure
As Larry Ribstein reports, the Enron prosecutorial veterans are already picking up the usual suspects in regard to the Bear Stearns meltdown. Meanwhile, John Carney wonders whether any investors really feel safer as a result of these criminal probes?...
The Bear Stearns lesson
Yesterday brought the final installment of Kate Kelly's extraordinary three-part W$J series on the fall of Bear Stearns (Kelly also contributed to today's story on Bear's final shareholders meeting). My goodness, was Kelly a fly on the wall over...
The Economist gets it
Following on recent posts here and here, The Economist produces the best mainstream media article that I've seen to date placing the prosecutorial misconduct of the Enron Task Force toward former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay in...
That pesky trust-based business model
Over the weekend, we learned that the Fed had bailed out New York-based investment bank Bear Stearns during this unsettled time in the financial markets. Almost seven years ago, a much larger company that shared many characteristics with Bear...
Criminalizing Capitalism
If I didn't know better, I'd say that Nicole Gelinas has been reading (H/T Professor Bainbridge) my blog over the past several years: [I]n the end, Sarbanes-Oxley has just made it easier for ambitious government attorneys to criminalize bad business...
The Skilling Appeal Brief
As Ashby Jones and Peter Henning noted on Friday, lawyers for Jeff Skilling filed his appellant's brief this past Friday along with a motion requesting that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals waive length-of-brief rules under the special circumstances of...
The injustice of the Jeff Skilling case
In a few days, unless the Fifth Circuit grants his motion to remain free on bond pending appeal of his conviction, Jeff Skilling will report to prison to begin serving a 24-year prison sentence. The image of Skilling entering that...
The Skilling sentencing hearing
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's sentencing hearing is Monday afternoon, so it's a good time to provide some links that will provide a basis for an objective evaluation of Skilling's case as a counterbalance to what the mainstream media typically...
The real presumption in the Lay-Skilling case
Although the key presumption in the criminal trial of former key Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling is supposed to be that the men are innocent of the charges levied against them, a far different presumption is turning out...
How to avoid an Enronesque experience
This earlier post that compares American International Group, Inc.'s business model to that of Enron Corp. makes an important point about the true reason that Enron collapsed. The general public's perception -- fueled by the Enron Task Force and most...
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