There's a big problem generalizing from Enron. Enron was more complex than that. There were two basic defects with Enron: 1) The energy traders were rogue by

There's a big problem generalizing from Enron. Enron was more complex than that. There were two basic defects with Enron: 1) The energy traders were rogue by virtue of poor governance. The problem was baked into the compensation scheme there and could not be undone. 2) Skilling was rogue, but his sort of SPE manipulation was actually quite common. The rest of the company is believed to have been fundamentally sound. Enron was the big hero until they basically put CALPERS at risk. Then the story changed. I watched as the California energy deregulation unfolded. It was apparent that it would fail exactly as it did. There's a larger background of boom-bust globally but especially concentrated in the US for ( I think ) path-dependent reasons. See "Nation of Deadbeats" for a semi-historical treatise on the subject. This goes back to John Law and the Mississippi Bubble - but each is different. I don't get the feeling the whole subject is clearly understood. The dominant "left-right" beliefs are not helpful. The left believes regulation can fix it; the right thinks ... something else will ( usually a bland nod towards competition). Thinking about stability is quite new. It's not clear we know what we're doing.