I agree, but let's maybe stay on topic here.

You're (perhaps unintentionally) marginalizing the scale of the corruption going on with the Enron fiasco.

And come on, everyone with a functioning brain knows that the government is corrupt. The idea that there could be proof that enron and the govt were scratching backs, has some big implications on the depth and scope of the current corrupt world regime.

Enron is more or less a scapegoat so to speak. Social security makes enron look like the boy scouts. Also if people knew about the derivatives market.. Derivatives is the stuff nightmares are made of..

Enron was "Enroned" because they were instrumental in getting GWB into presidency. Meaning, it would have likely never happened if Enron didn't exist.

Analysts were also discouraged from pointing out the obvious in Enron's quarterlies. The government tore down the wall between investment banking and analysis, so investment bankers could use their own analyst's reports to push stock. So bankers pressured analysts to say only good things so they could sell, analysts wanted the commission, and on top of it all, reporting negatively on Enron will take down it's price.

also the article is probably overstating how "corrupt" Enron was. Most people on the inside really didn't think it was doing so badly. Andy Fastow and a few of his cronies in finance were the primary puppeteers in all the shady SPE shit they were running.

Oh, and JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch both aided and abetted (found guilty) of helping Enron.

Oh, and Jeff Skilling was permitted to use mark-to-market accounting because SEC idiots believed natural gas derivative trading is somehow "consistent" money-earning.

Not to mention Enron sabotaged it's own goals in manipulating deregulated California energy, when it was lobbying states to deregulate energy. (Enron wasn't the only guilty party, and by far not the worst).

Bottom line: government deregulation can be bad, shitty government regulators is bad, American Harvard MBA business culture is bad.

Social security.. is not much at all like Enron.

Enron was also the single funding source that put Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee into office because Congressmen Craig Washington had pissed off Ken Lay. There is also the matter that a large amount of staff in the Bush White House were former Enron employees and executives.