Essay - The Collapse of Enron Enron Used to Be One of...

The Collapse of Enron

***** used to be one of the world's largest publicly traded companies. Its assets at various junctures were valued at anywhere ********** $30 billion and $40 billion: gre*****er than the gross national product, for some years, ***** Malaysia. Enron's primary bread and butter ***** to be energy trading. Enron would purchase and then sell various ********** of energy, and although it had many other related business, ranging far and wide from telecommunications to consulting services, most of their business concentrated on ***** *****.

Enron's management was quite stable for many years. For example, it was major news when Mark Palmer was promoted to vice-president of public relations w*****h primary responsibility for Enron's ***** relations departments worldwide. His job was to implement Enron's public ***** strategies over all of its subsidiaries, like Azurix Corp., ***** then new water company. He was ***** from within the corporation, and has *****en criticized recently for making several key poor public relations decisions that helped contribute to ***** current dilemma. But *****p management - Ken Lay, et al - stayed remarkably constant over the past 10 years.

The fallout ***** Enron's collapse will influence our business systems ***** economy for *****, maybe even decades. More importantly, the collapse ***** shape the American business community's psyche in ways we have only begun to imagine. When an entity that large implodes, *****re are bound to be side effects and repercussions through almost every facet of the economy. The hardest hit sec*****rs, ***** course, will be institutional investing and accounting and auditing practices: a thorough ex*****mination of how ***** 401(k) retirement funds ***** managed will be necessary to determine why so many aging working Americans suddenly lost almost every penny of their 401(k)s ***** their hope and their family's ***** for ***** retirement years, just around the corner - ***** Enron collapsed. Accounting companies who combine their services with consulting services - not just Arthur Anderson: every ***** firm does it at least to a certain extent, Anderson ***** happened to get caught - will need to be checked and after ***** of congressional grumbling, this time it may actually happen.

***** has collapsed, yes, but as a business commun*****y we can profit from it in the long run as long ***** we take the proper steps to ensure ***** it ********** rear its ugly head again. Success depends primarily on better corpor*****e governance laws ***** ethics: directors of corporations ***** to be more involved in their ********** asset management, account*****g firms need ***** be pr*****ted ***** offering clients consulting services on the very fru***** of the accounting services they provide, 401(k) plan managers need to answer ***** funds diversificati***** rules and law firms that oversee *****' asset management ***** tax liability options also need to be held accountable to modified American Bar Association rules ***** ethics. The path to effective change will be long and bumpy, ***** it will be necessary if we are ***** successfully avoid another Enron.

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