for those that dont know (and i was one of em till i saw the doc)
basically what enron did was use a type of accounting (mark to market i think) that allowed them to book future profits as soon as a deal was inked. given that stock price is highly correlated with earnings (its called a price to earnings ratio) you can see how this manipulated thier stock price.
now the problem with an accounting policy like this is eventually the money coming in doesnt match the money you already booked. the solution is you have to book even more bullshit revenues to make up for the other ones, and so on and so forth, so its a self feeding cycle. additionally, enron was actually losing obscene amounts of $$ so they came up with a myriad of holding companies to hidethe debt from public eye
the higher ups at enron were renumerated with stock options (in addition to their salaries) they had impending knowledge of enrons future demise and most of em cashed out, which pretty much guarnteed them a stay in prison
for my next lecture ill discuss the california energy crisis and how enron fucked thousands of people out of thier 401k plans
