News of shredding at Enron raised more questions. ibid.
20,000 employees had lost their jobs. ibid.
In Washington, Lay became part of a new crusade to liberate businessmen from the rules and regulations of government. ibid.
George Bush senior helped secure billions in government subsidies for Enron International. ibid.
In 1987 two oil traders made bets for Enron on whether the price of oil would rise or fall ... Enron Oil always seemed to win. ibid.
At the board meeting the auditors told Lay that [Louis] Borget and his traders were manipulating earnings, destroying daily trading records and probably gambling way beyond their limits. ibid.
Lay encouraged his traders to gamble more. ibid.
Enron would become a kind of stock market for natural gas ... Transform energy into financial instruments that could be traded like stocks and bonds. ibid.
Market to market accounting allowed Enron to book future potential profits on the very day the deal was signed. ibid.
‘The insiders had sold off a billion dollars of their stock in the preceding several months.’ ibid. Bill Lerach, attorney for shareholders
Though Lou Pai flew away from Enron with $250 million the divisions he left behind lost a total of nearly $1 billion but Enron managed to disguise that fact. ibid.
Enron mounted a campaign to capture the hearts and minds of stock analysts. ibid.
The game was called Pump and Dump. Top execs would push the stock price up and then cash in their multi-million dollar options. ibid.
Enron had vast natural gas operations all over the world. They had cost billions to build and most were performing terribly. ibid.
The analysts weren’t analysing at all; they were willing to believe virtually anything Enron told them. ibid.
‘Enron has created the market to buy and sell bandwidth like a commodity. Ask why.’ ibid. Enron advert
Enron’s stock soared 34% in two days. ibid.
When Enron announced its latest plan to trade weather, people wondered whether it was good science or science fiction. ibid.
[Andrew] Fastow had to figure out a way to keep the stock price up by hiding the fact that Enron was $30 billion in debt. ibid.
Traders soon discovered that by shutting down power plants they could create artificial shortages that would push prices even higher. ibid.
The year-long energy crisis would cost the state of California $30 billion. ibid.
Ken Lay did have easy access to the Bush administration. ibid.
Jeff Skilling abruptly resigns. ibid.
The SEC launched an investigation when the Wall Street Journal published articles revealing Fastow’s murky deals. Enron announced massive financial restatements. ibid.
Enron’s accounting firm Arthur Anderson had begun destroying its Enron files. On October 23rd Anderson shredded more than one ton of paper. ibid.
Enron declared bankruptcy. ibid.
It is impossible to underestimate the shock – a sense of stunned disbelief. Steve Fraser, author Wall Street: A Cultural History
As people came in to trade stocks on October 24th there was a sense that maybe something had changed. Something different. All of a sudden there weren’t buyers ... And prices began to fall. Karen Blumenthal, author Six Days in October
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are
taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake
with a shudder despairing. W S Gilbert, Iolanthe, 1882
The crowd grew thicker and noisier. And then there was an eddy in the middle of it. And a man in shirt-sleeves was pushing his way across the street in the direction of the Morgan offices. This was Charles E Mitchell, chairman of the national city bank. He had pushed his way into the offices of the house of Morgan, and a little later we learnt what he’d gone for. Claud Coburn, The Times, Memoirs 24th October 1929
It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. Louis McFadden
Actually, it was the calculated shearing of the public by the world-money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York money market. Curtis Dall
We going to turn the bull loose. Ronald Reagan
Within a few weeks $3 billion of wealth simply seemed to vanish. Within a year $40 billion had been lost. But did it really disappear or was it simply consolidated in fewer hands? And what did the Federal Reserve do? ... The Fed continued to brutally contract the money supply further. Bill Still, The Money Masters
The stock market continues to sag without end. Have orders in to sell everything. I figure I’ll have about five hundred left if I’m lucky. A humble ending to a potential profit not four months ago of nearly a hundred thousand. At least I say to myself I lost all in the greatest panic in history. Arthur Inman, diary entry 12th November 1929
The Stock Market Crash in 1929 did not create the Great Depression. But it did start a sequence of events that eventually culminated with the Great Depression. Ron Chernow, financial historian
Hoover was president and he and Andrew Melon, the Secretary of the Treasury, were way to the Right and felt that it was not the government’s job to interfere with this. They believed in pure unfettered capitalism. Seth Glickenhaus, Wall Street worker, 1929
Pork bellies. Mmmm. I have a hunch something very exciting is going to happen in the pork belly market this morning. Trading Places 1983 starring Dan Aykroyd & Eddie Murphy & Ralph Bellamy & Don Ameche & Denholm Elliott & Jamie Lee Curtis & Kristin Holby & Paul Gleason et al, director John Landis
I care about how much money we’re going to get for our pork bellies. ibid. Mortimer
Randolph, we’re about to make millions in frozen orange juice and you’re talking to me about human nature. ibid.
The Financial Journal: What’s News: New Appointee Valentine Electrifies Duke & Duke. ibid.
You idiot! Get back in there and sell! Sell! ibid. Mortimer
Turn the machines back on! Turn the machines back on! ibid. Mortimer
It was thanks to Maggie Thatcher opening up the City of London that yours truly from Watford came to be working for a posh outfit like Barings. Rogue Trader 1999 starring Ewan McGregor & Anna Friel & Tim McInnerny & Nigel Lindsay & John Standing & Lee Ross & Yves Beneyton & Betsy Brantley & Caroline Langrishe & Ivan Heng et al, director James Dearden
Barings was the oldest private bank in the world. ibid.
Indonesia was one of the so-called Tiger Economies in the Far East. ibid.
As a reward for my success in Jakarta I’d been given Singapore – a much more important market with a brief to set up my own trading operation. I was definitely on my way. ibid.
The truth is we’re not buying and selling anything real. ibid.
Call it the 88888 account. ibid.
That’s all the market is – one giant casino. ibid.
I spend most of my life covering everybody’s arse. ibid.
It was like robbing Peter to pay Paul. ibid.
Rumours of my success are greatly exaggerated. ibid.
So with scissors and paste I created $78,000,000 out of thin air. This was forgery pure and simple. And there was no going back. ibid.
Fucking hell it’s a freefall. I’ve never seen it move so fast. ibid.
I Nicholas Leeson have lost fifty million quid in one day! ibid. to self in bathroom mirror
He’s absolutely in the centre, in the vortex of the information curve over there. He’s discovered a whole new way of making money. Oh fuck the Rules, Tony. It’s barrow boys like Nick who are turning the City of London around. You can’t run a modern financial centre with a bunch of hooray-henries. ibid. Ron to Tony in gym
You’re probably wondering about the identify of our mystery customer X. Well the fact is he doesn’t exist. We are the customer. Barings. And if you look properly at the 8888 account, which is not a client account at all, it’s an errors account, you’ll realise that it’s concealing loses in the region of £200,000,000. No, I tell a lie, it’s more like £230,000,000 after today. ibid. imaginary confession at dinner table
That was when it hit me. The enormity of what I’d done. Whatever happened I knew things were never going to be the same again. ibid. Nick on plane
I was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. ibid.