Reddit reviews Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story

About a year ago, I read a book on Enron A conspiracy of Fools, fantastic book by the way, and it went into pretty good detail about exactly how Enron was messing with the Californian energy markets. It was absolutely disgusting. Straight out illegal.

Here's an example (this is just one of many, named scams they had. Naming them was partly what got them busted.):

They found out the energy brought into California from out of state was paid for by the state at a much higher rate. So Enron produced energy in CA, ran it on a loop out of the state and back in again - and charged the higher price.

Another scam: Enron discovered that during peak-energy volume times of the day, that the state could cancel energy transfers of a B2B nature in favour of allowing the consumer energy market to function. They would be paid huge compensation for every energy transfer they were asked to cancel. So during peak times, Enron would schedule loads of completely fake transfers (that were NEVER going to take place) and then the state would ask them to cancel the transfers - and in the process, pay them huge compensation for doing so.

The list went on - they just had scam after scam after scam. What Enron did to the people of CA should NEVER be forgotten.

Not least of which, because if you think Enron were the only ones doing it - you're certifiably wrong. Further - I have no doubt that big companies are STILL doing all kinds of scams, so long as they believe they can get away with it. Or if they believe the risk vs reward of doing it and getting caught occasionally still justifies the reward.

If you're really interested in the Enron scandal, check out Conspiracy of Fools. It's written more like a narrative instead of a journalistic report like The Smartest Guys in the Room. If you read them both you'll know the whole thing inside and out.

> Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

I love that documentary. I've probably watched it 100 times. Read the book if you haven't, but Eichenwald's book Conspiracy of Fools is even better.