Crooks or Incompetant?

Well I never thought I would entwine these two items in a single thought but here goes. In addition to watching the DVD about Enron "The Smartest Guys in the Room" this weekend I also witnessed one of the most horrifically officiated football games ever - and it was the Super Bowl!! I mean absolutely bad, almost criminal - such that the word"fix" comes to mind. Something that bloated John Madden wouldn't even consider saying on the air - but radio did loud and clear the morning after.

So are they Crooks or just Incompetant?

Let's take the ref's first - I actually started out to "blog" the game as I have seen so many people do but I was ready to throw the laptop at the TV by the end of the first half. Seattle got jobbed - and it was bad - refs just know when not to make overly controversial calls on a number of big plays, but it didn't stop 'em in this game - the push off by Darrell Jackson on the Seahawks was not a penalty. Big Ben did not score on that borderline TD - and replay even proved it. Seattle got screwed twice in the same drive with a mythical holding penalty and apparently a new rule "you can't tackle below the knees". Frankly the worst officiating I have ever seen in a major championship game.

So was it fixed? Well it almost seemed like it when the announcers claimed early in the broadcast that the head refereee actually umpired in a high school game with Seattle coach Mike Holmgren "and they both remembered each other". Wow - what must have happened at that game. "Quit looking at my wife Mike - well I'll get you in the Super Bowl in 30 years later coach". Hmmm.

Actually it was so bad you can't really even claim incompetance - I have never seen such stupidity before except when Pittsburgh beat Indianapolis a few weeks earlier and the Steeler's Joey Porter still claimed the umps were out to get them - well who was out to support you this time Joey?

Nah, I'm afraid they are just incompetant. Just really, really, really bad.

Which takes us to our fine friends at Enron. Enron - one of those names that once signalled corporate might and now signals shameful failure - like Edsel, Three Mile Island, and Super Bowl Referees. Many people know the Enron story - a energy company that was once the seventh largest American corporation got itself in trouble during the go-go stock market days and the "tech" bubble of 2001 and pulled out all of the stops to try to keep its stock price from falling (which was all of the rage at the time) and also while some execs sold there stock while imploring the rank and file to continue to buy. The result was the nation's largest bankruptcy of all time and millions of lost jobs and busted retirement funds. In an effort to camouflage losses, the financial whizzes at the firm formed elaborate partnerhips and financings which in many cases made loans look like earnings - thus disguising poor operating results.

But were they crooks? Or just incompetant?

First of all let me talk about the retirement angle - this gets all worn out by the sympathy police on TV and as someon with no retirement I get sick of it - someone claims they had so much in company stock in their 401K and they are wiped out, but the reality is you never really had it because it was all "paper value", you unwittingly invested in a sham, and that is too bad - but don't put all your eggs in one basket mister! You mess with the bull you get the horns. Do you want me to tell you about all the other high flying bullshit stocks that were out there that I lost money on also? Everybody lost in that tech bubble - you guys were just over exposed. I can giftwrap some useless Tyco stock options for youse guys if you really want it.

The financial goings-on were somewhat common at the time. I have travelled the financing world and every investment house was trotting out "models" and transaction types that could hide debt and other things - but you didn't always act on them. But in this case - I mean Arthur Anderson and Vinson and Elkins all signed off on this! It was a feeding frenzy - and if your boss tells you to do something in this high flying situation what so you do? Whistle blower Sheryl Watkins didn't do anything until CEO Jeffrey Skilling abruptly announced his retirement six months before the company's demise when she thought she had a chance to say something - by then it was way too late in the stock market slide at the time. There are a number of other points here to discuss - but i guess where I get off is how loosely the word crook gets thrown around.

The point is the whole situation got out of hand over a number of years - I'm not saying that what they did was right, smart or even ethical (and there is a whole list of stuff to talk about here) or that Ken Lay is a boyscout, a liar maybe - but I just don't know if it is criminal. Should they go to jail for being stupid and listening to their lawyers and CPA's - or should they all just lose all of their money defending themselves and live in shame and disrepute.

The latter is what I lean to - and the same for the refs.