Executive Director Barry C. Lynn publishes a detailed article ion supply chain fragility and industrial interdependence.

When Congress summoned Enron’s top executives this February and made them sit, hands folded, in front of the TV cameras, we at home were treated to a familiar display of Washington theater. Because most of these men had invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves, no one expected much new information to be revealed. But our congressmen certainly were not going to let pass a chance to broadcast to the world their indignation at the gross mismanagement of a company that had once been so powerful, and so generous. Even at the highest pitch of their fury, however, few of the politicians ever actually said that what the executives had done was illegal. Although the erstwhile pipeline company had certainly become more skilled at pumping debt into subterranean partnerships than at earning money by pumping petroleum, it was not clear that any of Enron’s bosses had in fact overstepped the bounds Congress had set for the conduct of their business. But then this was not the first time our elected representatives had publicly chastised one of their children for smashing the car, knowing full well that they themselves had liquored the kid up beforehand and slipped him the keys.
What most amazed me was not the elasticity with which Democrats and Republicans alike twisted their faces into expressions of outrage. Rather, it was that a risk to the nation so very analogous to Enron, yet potentially so much more dangerous, was, and still is, being ignored by these same public servants. Then again, it’s easy to string up a single bad Andrew Fastow, or a disingenuous Jeffrey Skilling or Kenneth Lay. But what’s a government to do when a whole generation of corporations prove prodigal?

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