Wow, That's Fucking Greedy. I Wish I'd Thought of That.
I just saw Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Now, I really want to smack something... preferably Ken Lay's smug, sneering pug face. GAH!
Now I truly appreciate this monologue from Lewis Black's Rules of Enragement:
The people who ran this company are the greediest people who ever lived on the planet. That's a fact. This country has a ton of greedy people, and the greediest of the greedy saw what these guys did and went, "Wow. That's fucking greedy. I wish I'd thought of that. They just made the numbers up! Fuck, that was simple! I'm sooo stupid!"
These people were so greedy, that the word greedy doesn't even apply to them. There should be a new word for the level of greed. It should be "Piggy piggy piggy, fuck piggy piggy".
... and his rant on "Who's Fucking Who":
The fact is, business and government have been in bed together our whole lives. The difference is, they used to keep it hidden. They used to be fucking each other, but we didn't know about it. Now they do it right in front of us - they have no guilt whatsoever. They're like two big dogs stuck together who can't separate. Even a glass of water won't slow them down! They're out of control, but that's just the way it is.
I never realized how integral Enron was to the California electricity crisis 5 years ago. I mean, I knew they had something to do with it, but I didn't get that they COMPLETELY INVENTED IT to artificially drive up stock prices, costing the state of California some $30 billion in the process. THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS! Beyond the financial cost of this mess, the power outages caused fires, massive traffic accidents, medical emergencies, etc - plus the sheer inconveince of never knowing when another rolling blackout was coming to fuck up your day.
At one point in the movie, you see footage of old people stuck in a hospital elevator shaft for hours, and bodies getting hauled away from a traffic accident (because the street lights went out, causing havok), and power grids engulfed in massive flames - and then the voices of Enron traders laughing, "Burn baby burn! We're making so much fucking money, YAY US!!!" I'm only slightly paraphrasing, by the way.
This energy crisis was the main reason for the California Governor's recall election, am I right? Everyone blamed poor, ineffective Gray Davis for this entire situation. Meanwhile, did you know that the future Governator met with Ken Lay in Beverly Hills in May 2001?!? Or that Dick Cheney and his oil buddies had their hands in this mess all throughout 2000 and 2001? And that Barbara Boxer was one of the only California legislators to really go after Enron with a vengeance from the very beginning? God I love her.
Another Lewis Black quote - "I never understood why the people of France chopped off Marie Antoinette's head. Now I fucking get it!!!" Seriously, I think Californians should be allowed to chop off Ken Lay & Jeff Skillings' head. Or at least pelt them with rotten vegetables for a couple hours.
Now I truly appreciate this monologue from Lewis Black's Rules of Enragement:
The people who ran this company are the greediest people who ever lived on the planet. That's a fact. This country has a ton of greedy people, and the greediest of the greedy saw what these guys did and went, "Wow. That's fucking greedy. I wish I'd thought of that. They just made the numbers up! Fuck, that was simple! I'm sooo stupid!"
These people were so greedy, that the word greedy doesn't even apply to them. There should be a new word for the level of greed. It should be "Piggy piggy piggy, fuck piggy piggy".
... and his rant on "Who's Fucking Who":
The fact is, business and government have been in bed together our whole lives. The difference is, they used to keep it hidden. They used to be fucking each other, but we didn't know about it. Now they do it right in front of us - they have no guilt whatsoever. They're like two big dogs stuck together who can't separate. Even a glass of water won't slow them down! They're out of control, but that's just the way it is.
I never realized how integral Enron was to the California electricity crisis 5 years ago. I mean, I knew they had something to do with it, but I didn't get that they COMPLETELY INVENTED IT to artificially drive up stock prices, costing the state of California some $30 billion in the process. THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS! Beyond the financial cost of this mess, the power outages caused fires, massive traffic accidents, medical emergencies, etc - plus the sheer inconveince of never knowing when another rolling blackout was coming to fuck up your day.
At one point in the movie, you see footage of old people stuck in a hospital elevator shaft for hours, and bodies getting hauled away from a traffic accident (because the street lights went out, causing havok), and power grids engulfed in massive flames - and then the voices of Enron traders laughing, "Burn baby burn! We're making so much fucking money, YAY US!!!" I'm only slightly paraphrasing, by the way.
This energy crisis was the main reason for the California Governor's recall election, am I right? Everyone blamed poor, ineffective Gray Davis for this entire situation. Meanwhile, did you know that the future Governator met with Ken Lay in Beverly Hills in May 2001?!? Or that Dick Cheney and his oil buddies had their hands in this mess all throughout 2000 and 2001? And that Barbara Boxer was one of the only California legislators to really go after Enron with a vengeance from the very beginning? God I love her.
Another Lewis Black quote - "I never understood why the people of France chopped off Marie Antoinette's head. Now I fucking get it!!!" Seriously, I think Californians should be allowed to chop off Ken Lay & Jeff Skillings' head. Or at least pelt them with rotten vegetables for a couple hours.