I just watched a screener of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." I think it's a pretty good documentary of its rise and fall. I would've preferred a few more details about some of the financial shenanigans they were up to -- it could've gone a bit deeper.
The rise and fall of Enron represents another shameful moment in our press history - first the business press and then the general press. When Enron was fucking over California, the press was extraordinarily dismissive of any suggestions that the companies were gaming the system. It was quite obvious to anyone with about half a semester's worth of economics (and, when I taught, I would teach the economics of the energy crisis about half way through a semester) what was going on in general terms, if not the precise details which came out later. Most importantly, the obvious course of action was to impose hard price caps on the system, something not understood by the drooling idiots whose entire knowledge of economics is a basic supply/demand diagram.
God I hate these people.
...thought, I admit, reading the Yahoo stock boards as the stock plunged provided me with endless hours of entertainment. Good times.
