Sherron Watkins's Books

Power Failure

The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

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Power Failure

The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

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434

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ISBN 10

076791368X

ISBN 13

9780767913683

Power Failure

The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Power Failure

The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

434

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ISBN 10

076791368X

ISBN 13

9780767913683

Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA

A State and the Nation

By: Donald G. Mathews,Jane Sherron De Hart

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Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA

A State and the Nation

By: Donald G. Mathews,Jane Sherron De Hart

Feminism has changed the United States -- but not to universal applause. The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982 not only suggested the extent of anti-feminism in our nation; it also triggered a remarkable range of emotions. To its supporters, the amendment meant equal opportunity and individual freedom; it was the logical extension of the highest American ideals. To opponents, however, it meant the destruction of "womanhood"; it was "a dangerous virus cultured in the pathology of American life," an insidious outgrowth of the sixties. Partisans were shocked that a debate about equality should become a debate about gender, and that the ERA should become a symbol of impurity and danger. Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA is the most profound and sensitive discussion to date of the way in which women responded to feminism. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, Mathews and De Hart explore the fate of the ERA in North Carolina--one of the three states targeted by both sides as essential to ratification--to reveal the dynamics that stunned supporters across America. The authors insightfully link public discourse and private feelings, placing arguments used throughout the nation in the personal contexts of women who pleaded their cases for and against equality. Beginning with a study of woman suffrage, the book shows how issues of sex, gender, race, and power remained potent weapons on the ERA battlefield. The ideas of such vocal opponents as Phyllis Schlafly and Senator Sam Ervin set the perfect stage for mothers to confess their terror at the violation of their daughters in a post-ERA world, while the prospect of losing ratification to this terror impelled supporters to shed the white gloves of genteel lobbying for the combat boots of political in-fighting. In the end, however, the efforts of ERA supporters could neither outweigh the symbolic actions of its opponents--who reassured male legislators with gifts of homemade bread tagged "To the breadwinners from the breadbakers"--Nor weaken the resistance of those same legislators to further federal guarantees of equality. Ultimately, opponents succeeded in making equality for women seem dangerous. In thus explaining the ERA controversy, the authors brilliantly illuminate the many meanings of feminism for the American people.

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302

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Oxford University Press on Demand

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0195078527

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9780195078527

Power Failure

The Rise and Fall of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

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Power Failure

The Rise and Fall of Enron

By: Mimi Swartz,Sherron Watkins

By 2000, the Enron Corporation was a colossus. Over 16 years it hadransformed itself from a stodgy Texas pipeline company into the world'siggest energy trader, with annual revenues of $100 billion. From itslittering skyscraper in Houston Enron hustled deals in the world's energy,rom natural gas to wind power, from Third World refineries to Britain'sessex Water. Its share price increased by 1700 per cent; its aggressivelyasual staff prided themselves on their ruthless competitiveness, lavishages, and obligatory Porsche Boxster. Even Enron's skewed "E" logo seemed toevel in a jaunty angle from conventional business reality.;A year later, athe end of 2001, Enron imploded. Thousands of staff were laid off, theirensions - invested in its stocks - worthless, the banks were exposed forundreds of millions of dollars, and suddenly President Bush's closeriendship with Enron's founder looked unwise. It has been an ongoing newstory ever since.;Now, drawing closely on the testimony of Sherron Watkins,he vice-president first to blow the whistle on its dubious accounting

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386

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ISBN 10

1854108832

ISBN 13

9781854108838

Book's by Sherron Watkins

Power Failure

Power Failure

Power Failure

Power Failure

Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA

Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA

Power Failure

Power Failure

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