“There were times when Lay’s lobbying seemed at odds with his oft-stated belief in free-market solutions. A classic example was Enron’s dependence on such government agencies as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank, which provided loans and loan guarantees for development project in the third world.”
“Like most Wall Street frenzies, the international development craze was wildly overhyped…. [S]ome of Enron International’s assets were almost comically awful, and others were fields of dreams.”
– Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room (below)
A best-selling Enron book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room (Penguin: 2003), told of Enron’s many interactions with government. Their treatment of the subject is only the beginning, however. My forthcoming book, Political Enron: A Business History (Part I: 2016), will chronicle Enron’s unprecedented rent-seeking as a warning about the perils of a mixed economy where the worst can get on top.…
Continue Reading“The final analysis is: Lots of jet fuel expended but not much accomplished in getting the public alarmed enough to make themselves energy poorer. The public is not listening for good reason. They have been hearing the same thing since 1988 (27 years) and the data does not support a present or future crisis.”
To be sure, if a politician is barking about global warming, he or she has little to say about the real issues that concern Americans, from economic progress to federal budget deficit reduction. But yelp they must; the science has been going away from climate alarmism, and the economy is getting no boost from government-enabled, inferior energies (quite the opposite).
In an effort to stir up support for an economy-shrinking treaty from the UN Conference of the Parties-21 (COP-21) meeting in Paris this December, President Obama went on a whirlwind one-week tour promoting the global warming scare with many speeches, photo-ops, and newspaper columns.…
Continue Reading“The stories in Eichenwald’s book [on Enron] about [Andy] Fastow’s rage reminded me of [Michael] Mann’s rage – often exemplified in public, but now placed further into context by the Climategate letters.”
“The comparison with Enron may also be helpful in placing Climategate into context.”
– Steve McIntyre, February 2010
Back in 2010, Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit wrote a post, Rob Bradley: Climategate from an Enron Perspective. Bradley and McIntyre focus on the intellectual specter of bad science driving out good. As revealed by Climategate, mainstream climate scientists, driven by an agenda of alarmism in the service of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), chose to defend each other (with some exceptions) rather than let the hammer of the scientific method fall where it might.
Jerry North at Texas A&M, featured below, particularly culpable in the wake of Climategate, has largely withdrawn from the debate after a period of activism with his colleague Andy Dessler (who is no doubt having second thought about his I-am-certain high-sensitivity warming position of years past).…
Continue Reading