The US is in recession, or, at best, slowly coming out of it. As
with all recessions, some things remain constant. First, company
executives, bankers and investors generally don't want to admit
there is a problem. They'll convince themselves that there's a new
dynamic in the market that this time will make recession
impossible, avoidable or at least short-lived. They'll hold off
sacking people. They'll blame it on another sector of the market -
in this case, they say, it started with the bursting of the tech
bubble in April 2000 - and swear it won't affect them. And they'll
refuse to take action to protect their companies, such as shoring
up balance sheets, because they look back with nostalgia to the
time when their stock prices were higher - two weeks ago, two
months ago, six months ago...
Enron is simply a spectacular symptom of an economic and financial
system in decline...
