Verdicts Drive Home Lessons of Enron

They tried to act as if nothing was wrong. They blamed the short-sellers. They said it was business as usual and if it weren't for the press, they would still be in business.

And for their lies, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling are going to spend years and years in prison.

It took a special kind of conspiracy these two concocted, one that routinely hid how bad business was. These two knew that Enron had nowhere near the earnings power they bragged about. In fact, its business was no better than a regular utility. So it made up earnings, made them up by the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The press did play a role: It exposed these shenanigans and got the rigging to the upside stopped. The government played a very small role, coming in after the robbery was over. ...