thought. something is very wrong in the case of enron. a lot of knowledgeable people on wall street, were either duped or purposefully went along for the ride at the expense of thousands of others. this is not a story of a few bad people, this is a story of a lot of bad people. they were aided and abetted by accountants, lawyers, there was no cop on the beat, you ve got to put limits on the greed that drives a whole lot of people. they were once among the most celebrated business leaders in america. tonight, they are convicted felons. enron was just the first domino, it was followed by worldcom by healthsouth, by tyco, one accounting fraud after another, on and on and on. this belief that giant corporations are going to be restrained from running amok,
it buys and sells billions of dollars worth of energy, every day. it s the largest company of its kind in the world. enron is a company that deals with everyone with absolute integrity. we play by all the rules and stand by our work. we mean what we say . ken lay was the original ceo, he ran enron when the company was created out of the merger of two pipeline companies. he seems like the ultimate success story. he hired jeff skilling. every year, every day, every week you have to come up with new ideas. he was very charismatic. when you heard a rob rock speech of his, you felt energized. i ve likened him to a cult leader, he could get you to drink the kool-aid. we are looking to create open, competitive, fair markets,
and prices are lower and customers get better service. you are the good guys. we are on the side of angels. the pendulum in business tends to swing too far in either direction, and this was an era of deregulation. the deregulation of the energy industry is causing one problem after another. enron was very good at weakening existing rules and regulations and taking advantage of the space between the rules. in the midst of this heatwave, and energy emergency has been declared in california. the energy crisis in california was not just a force of nature, it was a result of market manipulation by energy generators and producers like enron. i want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down. we are just coming down for maintenance? right. and that s cool?
ensuring employees that i ve never felt better about the prospects for the company and in fact, urging them to buy more company stock. leadership knew that we cook the books and yet, ken lay through the fall of 2021 was selling stock. they got theirs but we are not going to get hours . putin and others who work for enron or a subsidiary, saw their retirement nest eggs made up heavily of enron shares wiped out this month. worse they are powerless to stop the hemorrhaging because enron had block them from making any changes in their retirement plan. when i saw the stock drop i called to sell, and was told i was locked out. so i had to stand by and watch my savings disappear. many of the nation s top banks and mutual funds were also invested in enron, the company is widely expected to become the this bankruptcy case in history. enron was the moment that we realized that so much of the business world was not what we