Martha and the smartest guys in the room

Lay and Skilling are guilty. What a relief. I had my sit-in outfit hanging on the back of the bedroom door just in case.

My interest in this trial was geared more toward worrying if the boys would somehow walk after Martha did her time. I still think Martha Stewart's sentence was unfair and blown out of proportion so that the SEC could make a point. The point they made with me is that you can't be a successful, dynamite, millionaire, woman and get away with what a successful, dynamite, millionaire, man can get away with.

Back to Skilling and Lay, we'll have to wait until September to see how serious the guilty verdict turns out to be with the sentencing, but the media are predicting a pretty harsh outcome. Time will tell.

The whole Enron thing fascinated me from the beginning. I was in line (actually the only one in line) at Borders for The Smartest Guys in the Room when it came out and read it in a weekend. I think the book should be required reading for Finance 101 students. It's much better than any textbook I've ever seen on the subject.

In the early 70s we were caught up in a, how should I say this, creative, company. Later it would be identified as a pyramid sales scheme, and attacked by the SEC. It was one of many pyramid or multi-level marketing plans that came alive during the 70s, only the program we were with was the largest, so the SEC went after the company with loaded guns.

What I remember most about those days is that we flew all over the country, lived on room service and almost never slept. We were dedicated to the company and to those we worked with. I still have a box of cards from people we recruited for the company thanking us and the company for changing their lives. It almost seems like it was a movie of the week instead of real. I guess that's why when Kenneth Lay says he doesn't believe he is guilty, I believe he really believes he's not. That's not to say he isn't guilty, just that he is convinced that he has done nothing wrong.

The point is, things don't always end up the way they start out, and that is for sure what happened to Enron. It will be interesting to see how the sentencing goes.