Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room (Myth20c - Ep278)

Capitalism, like any large scale socioeconomic system, has had its share of successes and failures. But the story of Enron, which went from the ranks of the Fortune 500 and darling of Wall Street to bankruptcy in a matter of months in late 2001, served as a lowmark for American business culture in terms of corporate greed as the largest bankruptcy to stem from fraud in United States history. Tonight we are joined by Ace Niederhoff from the mean streets of high finance to delve into the who, what, why, and perhaps most importantly, if the failure of Enron was an indictment of capitalism, or was it proof of how efficiently is removes the bad actors when corruption is revealed.

-- Brought to you by --

Very special guest Ace Niederhoff
https://manifestdestinypodcast.substack.com/
https://x.com/aceniederhoff

with Adam Smith

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-- References --

- Trading Places, Landis (1983)
- The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Ridley (1993)
- Is Enron Overpriced?, McClean (2001) - https://money.cnn.com/2006/01/13/news/companies/enronoriginal_fortune/index.htm
- The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, McLean, Elkind (2003)
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Gibney (2005)
- The Episode with the Electric Truck Fraud Scandal, Brown (2020) - https://www.truckinginfo.com/10125824/the-episode-with-the-electric-truck-fraud-scandal
- Confessions of a Private Equity Operator, Myth of the 20th Century (2024) - https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2024/06/02/confessions-of-a-private-equity-operator/
- Episode 1: American Origins: Precursors to Pilgrims, The Manifest Destiny Podcast (2024) - https://manifestdestinypodcast.substack.com/p/episode-1-precursors-to-pilgrims
- Levelized cost of electricity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity