The primary component of the modern scandal is deregulation, either by law or by the de facto dumbing down or hacking back of the supervisory offices of government. This is the common thread that unites such otherwise disparate events as the 2008 financial crisis, the S&L debacle of the 1980s, the BP oil spill (made possible by the driller-friendly Minerals Management Service), and the fall of lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who aimed to shield offshore sweatshops from the heavy hand of the state). But it was Enron that fully grasped the tantalizing possibilities of deregulation. After all, it owed its very existence to the 1985 merger of two pipeline companies aiming to take advantage of the deregulation of natural gas. Later on, its corporate mission was to “make markets” in utility services once considered to be natural monopolies, like water and electricity. The 1998 deregulation of the power industry in California is what allowed Enron’s energy traders (along with energy traders from other companies) to arrange that state’s famous man-made electricity crisis a few years later.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:49:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015