经济学Essay代写范文模板：Enron's Collapse - Causes, Consequences and Lessons Learnt
本文是经济学专业的留学生Essay代写范例，题目是“Enron's Collapse - Causes, Consequences and Lessons Learnt（安然的崩溃——原因、后果和教训）”,安然公司，一家总部设在德克萨斯州休斯顿的能源公司，卷入了20世纪最狡猾的经济丑闻之一。该公司也是一个商品和服务机构，服务全国大部分地区。该公司提交的许多财务报告都是基于一个系统的结构，可以归结为简单的会计欺诈(维基百科)。整个20世纪90年代，安然公司与阿瑟·安德森会计师事务所的关系多次受到质疑。可疑的会计技术被曝光，许多人怀疑欺诈的恶臭萦绕在这个行业。在盈利的年份安然的股票价格超过每股90美元。然而，丑闻最终被揭露，顷刻之间使这家公司破产(Bottiglieri, Reville，和Grunewald)。2001年11月30日，该公司的股票以每股26美分的最低价格收盘。此外，2001年12月2日安然公司不可避免地宣布破产(Thomas 4)。
Introduction介绍
Enron Corporation, an energy company based in Houston, Texas, was involved in one of the most devious economic scandals of the 20th century. The company was also a commodities and services organization that served much of the country. Multitudes of the financial reports that the company submitted were found to be grounded in a systematic structure that can be boiled down to simply accounting fraud (Wikipedia). Throughout the 1990’s, Enron had been challenged many times on its relationship with the accounting firm Arthur Anderson. Questionable accounting techniques were brought to light, and many suspected that the stench of fraud was lingering around the business. During the profitable years Enron’s stock price was above $90 per share. However, the scandal that eventually was revealed toppled the business in an instant (Bottiglieri, Reville, and Grunewald 1). The stock closed on November 30, 2001 at an ultimate low of 26 cents a share. Furthermore, December 2, 2001 hosted Enron’s inevitable declaration for bankruptcy (Thomas 4).
Kenneth Lay, the founder of Enron, promoted the importance of high stock prices above all else. He pushed employees to focus on rising rates of return by trading assets and borrowing more money. An asset free balance sheet meant that new resources could come in and trick the public into thinking that the company was hugely successful (Tonge, Greer, and Lawton 6). Lay essentially began the craze for high earnings, an obsession that cost his company its life. Ultimately, it was Lay’s role that set in motion the collapse of Enron.
安然(Enron)的创始人肯尼斯·莱(Kenneth Lay)强调了高股价的重要性高于其他一切。他敦促员工通过资产交易和借贷来关注回报率的提高。无资产的资产负债表意味着新的资源可能会进入，并欺骗公众认为该公司非常成功(Tonge, Greer和Lawton)。雷本质上开始了对高收益的狂热，这种痴迷使他的公司失去了生命。最终，正是Lay的角色导致了安然公司的倒闭。
Jeffrey Skilling, President, COO, and CEO (from February-August 2001), was the driving force behind Enron Finance Corp., an organization that became the middle man in gas line contracts. The firm would buy large amounts of gas from distributors and then sell it for a profit with a hefty aggregate of fees on both ends for the accompanying risks. The genius behind this idea was that it not only created a new product, but also a completely new standard for the trade (Thomas 1). Skilling led his company with aggressive moves that often traded assets that they didn’t actually own at that time.
Andy Fastow, Enron’s CFO, was a master at manipulating liabilities. He used a technique common among energy corporations that used special purpose entities to relocate liability away from Enron. He made it so that the stock price per share would continually increase, which allowed it to continually hold a high investment rating (Wikipedia). Fastow was the reason that Enron got away with the scandal for so long. He enabled the company to hide behind false information and comfortably take advantage of the system.
Explanation of Enron's Collapse
Four management truisms explain the Enron collapse. The firm ignored solid business practices and the result was a disaster that could have easily been avoided.
The first truism is simple: people do what they know will reward them, and refrain from actions that invite punishment (Crews 5). Skilling only wanted the smartest, most accomplished individuals working for him. He sought after them in the best MBA schools and challenged the top competing companies for them. While the work was difficult and the hours long, Enron committed to providing the luxurious amenities that kept their employees working hard. There weren’t caps on these rewards, which pushed Enron employees even further (Thomas 1). Skilling set up an environment that was cut-throat and only cared about profit, which fostered an unhealthy workplace that was tolerant of executive wrongdoing. Non-standard accounting techniques and deal inflation became common practice, which caused Enron to collapse when they were caught. Enron employees knew what was expected of them based on what actions rewarded them.
Even the executives of Enron were pressured to keep up with the growth from the late 90’s. They knew that this type of growth was not sustainable, but continued the same practices never the less. These executives were rewarded for the consistent growth and knew that if it did not continue, they would be punished by credit agencies and trading partners (Sims and Brinkmann 245). This line of thinking ultimately led to major corner cutting during the exercise of very suspicious and misleading practices. This corner cutting then proceeded to plunge the company into massive debt without a reliable back up option. Unfortunately, everyone is shaped by incentives, even executives members. In fact, once they tasted success they were even more influenced by the rewards and punishments.
就连安然公司的高管也受到了压力，要跟上90年代末以来的增长。他们知道这种类型的增长是不可持续的，但仍然坚持同样的做法。这些高管因为持续增长而获得了奖励，他们知道，如果这种增长不能持续下去，他们将受到信贷机构和贸易伙伴的惩罚(Sims and Brinkmann 245)。这种思路最终导致了在执行非常可疑和误导的做法时的重大偷工减料。这种偷工减料的做法导致该公司在没有可靠的备选方案的情况下陷入巨额债务。不幸的是，每个人都受到激励的影响，甚至包括高管成员。事实上，一旦他们尝到成功的滋味，奖励和惩罚对他们的影响甚至更大。
The Performance Review committee fueled a dog-eat-dog environment that rose up the top employees and axed the lower ranking ones. People were harshly discouraged to ask questions about the business dealings with the company. Very few people were willing to raise objections in this environment (Tonge, Greer, and Lawton 12). The forced group-think led to a broken system of checks and balances. If employees raised concerns they were punished by demotion or firing, which was a nonstop cause for the company’s broken moral compass. Left unchecked, illegal deals were made and accounting fraud became rampant. The entire system was fueled by rewards, punishments, and fear. Everyone in the company was subject to it. Even the ethical people in the company were misled, pressured, or scared into doing the things that the company wanted them to do.
The second truism states that all organizations don’t have the same moral standard (Crews 8). Enron’s risk manual supported the idea that reported earnings were merely what the accountant wrote down instead of a solid and reliable strategy for continual growth. The company fostered the philosophy that corporate and personal wealth could be captured by cutting corners and creating false accounting records (Stewart 119). There was a culture about risk management and wealth growth techniques that looked to the accounting records as an easy scapegoat to ventures that were not actually profitable. This line of thinking quickly led to the use of non-traditional and illegal accounting practices and then the collapse when the records were realized to be fraudulent. It created a system where the firm relied on money that was never actually theirs. Employees were taught by the risk tolerance practices that it wasn’t necessary to share the ethical standards of other organizations. What was important to them was a positive number on the balance sheet and nothing else, a stark contrast to other companies.
Some companies approach the issue of underperformance with restructuring positions or relocating employees. Another approach is to fire workers without any second chances or support from the organization. Enron believed in punishing the lowest fifteen to twenty percent with dismissal, an act that was managed by peer reviews. Therefore, the culture of Enron was one of distrust and paranoia (Sims and Brinkmann 251). Peer reviews caused mistrust and management was able to get away with many unethical practices with little to no fear of being challenged. Management’s arrogance then led to unregulated practices that fostered debt creating strategies instead of profit creating ones like they reported. This also led to poor decision making and unsavory business practices that eventually imploded Enron. Ethical companies handled employee issues with respect and valued an employee’s opinion. Enron handled its problem by creating fear in its organization and removing those that stood against them. The blatant disparity between these types of companies depicted a clear image of the differences in moral code.
一些公司通过重组职位或调动员工来解决业绩不佳的问题。另一种方法是在没有第二次机会或组织支持的情况下解雇员工。安然认为对最低的15%到20%的人进行解雇，这一行为由同行评审管理。因此，安然的文化是不信任和偏执的(Sims and Brinkmann 251)。同行评审导致了不信任，管理层能够摆脱许多不道德的做法，几乎不用担心受到挑战。管理层的傲慢导致了不受监管的做法，催生了创造债务的策略，而不是像他们报告的那样创造利润的策略。这也导致了糟糕的决策和令人讨厌的商业行为，最终导致安然破产。有道德的公司在处理员工问题时尊重员工，重视员工的意见。安然公司处理问题的方法是在公司内部制造恐慌，并清除那些反对他们的人。这类公司之间的明显差异，清楚地反映了道德准则的差异。
When officials, both external and internal, decide to ignore essential ethical practices due to personal greed, it will most likely lead to investor loss whether or not regulations are enforced. This greed does not benefit the corporation, but instead simply destroys those interested parties that invest in the organization (Cunningham and Harris 29). The greed of high placed executives never was intended to actually help the company at all. Greed caused the downfall of both the corporation by developing a system where no one was actually looking out for the good of the company. The hunger fueled executives to make decisions in their own personal interest, at the sacrifice of the company, which led to the Enron collapse. The continual chase for more money set Enron apart from other more ethical companies and it became apparent where their priorities were. This company clearly was not like many others.
The third truism states that people and the organizations are not the same (Crews 1). Both Jim Alexander and Sherron Watkins, employees of Enron, informed Lay that they were going to get into trouble for the ethics break. Lay ignored these messages and continued business as usual and even denied that there were issues with accounting, trading, or reserves (McLean, Birnbaum, and Kahn). Both Alexander and Watkins tried to talk to the top executives and let them know that things were being noticed, but the culture at Enron was to look the other way and keep working. By ignoring the warning signs, Lay doomed the business to eventually fail due to disregarded malpractice and unchallenged illegal activity that soon became realized by the public. In this example the organization clearly had a different mindset than the two people that had concerns. They wanted to do the right thing, but the organization’s mentality was completely different.
Partnerships easily and efficiently raised money for Enron, but came at the cost of setting up promises that could later not be kept. For example, Project Braveheart was an idea created with Blockbuster to deliver movies over phone line. Enron documented $110.9 million in earnings shortly after the partnership was made. The project fell apart not long after its creation, but the profits were never seized (Prindle). The investments that Enron made were largely fictional and rarely actually profitable. They would promise partners money that had also already been guaranteed to a different partner. This eventually came crashing down as investors called in what was owed to them, leading to the Enron collapse. The partners had become part of the organization, but in no way did they want the same things that Enron truly wanted. The partners wanted a profitable relationship for both companies, but the organization just cared about itself. Hence, Enron and its associates were very different.
合伙关系轻松有效地为安然筹集到资金，但代价是建立了后来可能无法兑现的承诺。例如，“勇敢的心计划”是由百视达公司提出的通过电话传输电影的想法。在达成合作后不久，安然公司就录得1.109亿美元的收益。这个项目在创立后不久就解体了，但利润从未被攫取(普林德尔)。安然的投资大多是虚构的，实际上很少盈利。他们会向合伙人承诺已经向另一个合伙人保证的资金。随着投资者收回所欠他们的钱，这最终崩溃了，导致安然公司倒闭。这些合伙人已经成为了公司的一部分，但他们的想法与安然公司的完全不同。合伙人想让两家公司都有利可图，但公司只关心自己。因此，安然及其关联公司非常不同。
Skilling obsessed over the business and had no problem doing whatever it took to be the best in the industry and continuously lied about financial numbers (McLean and Elkind “The Guiltiest”). His strong personality, which often was described as arrogance, led to terrible ethical choices and if he thought that he had to change fiscal numbers he would. These compromises, driven by his reckless personality, crashed the firm into the ground. This example works in reverse compared to the other third truism illustrations. In this case it was actually the individual that negatively affected the organization. Skilling shaped the company how he wanted it to be, despite what it cost.
The fourth truism focuses on how ethical scandals are often not stopped due to useless in-house and external oversights (Crews 10). Deregulation laws in December 2008 gave energy traders too much power over prices. Consequently, Enron encouraged power blackouts in California in order to increase the price of reliable energy by up to 20x its normal value (Wikipedia). The deregulation of energy traders led to overconfidence in investments that Enron made because they thought they were in control. Arrogance caused them to risk more than they could afford, and when the market didn’t end up how they thought, it caused the collapse. The problem with the deregulation was that Enron was trusted to behave ethically. This oversight by officials gave Enron the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation and its customers.
Internal and external auditing must be done be separate corporations in order to be ethical. Arthur Anderson acted as both roles for Enron and in turn allowed them to partake in many practices that would normally not be acceptable. Anderson ignored the unethical business practices and instead supported a corporation paid for their massive consulting fees (Cunningham and Harris 43). Anderson wanted the streamline of money that came in with Enron’s partnership and it got to the point that they were fine breaking rules if it meant they could continue to make money. The accounting shortcuts they used to satisfy Enron were illegal and once discovered, caused the Enron collapse. Anderson was clearly in a conflict of interest and should not have been allowed to do the financial statements of Enron. If there were better restrictions in place the ethics scandal would not have been able to happen.
内部审计和外部审计必须分开进行，以实现道德规范。Arthur Anderson在安然中扮演了这两个角色，并允许他们参与了许多通常不被接受的做法。安德森无视不道德的商业行为，转而支持一家为他们支付巨额咨询费的公司(Cunningham和Harris 43)。安德森想要的是与安然合作的资金流线，到了这样的程度，他们可以违反规则，如果这意味着他们可以继续赚钱。他们用来满足安然公司的会计捷径是非法的，一旦被发现，就导致了安然公司的倒闭。安德森显然处于利益冲突之中，不应该被允许做安然公司的财务报表。如果有更好的限制，道德丑闻就不会发生。
Enron strategically stacked its house with political representatives, well-connected up-and-comers, and well-known public figures. They placed people of similar mindset in the board of directors and audit committee in order to have someone in their corner when they needed them (Chandra 107). By hand picking the people of importance in their environment, Enron was able to break the rules when they needed to. Having their people on the board of directors and audit committee allowed them to essentially do what they needed to provide results, which directly led to many illegal activities, and consequently the breakdown of Enron. Regulations should have stopped Enron from placing their own people in external positions of power. The conflict of interest begged for abuse of the rules.
Consequences of Enron's Collapse安然破产的后果
Enron, as a company, completely fell apart after the collapse. It was forced to renounce earnings with multiple partnerships such as Chewco Investments and JEDI. Then the company was forced to recall earnings all the way back to 1997, which only summed to $586 million and was only 20% of what had been reported. The stock prices fell to mere pennies and all consumer and financial buoyancy was lost. Shortly after, Enron declared bankruptcy (Prindle).
安然公司，作为一个公司，在破产后完全崩溃了。它被迫放弃了与Chewco Investments和JEDI等多个合作伙伴的收益。然后，该公司被迫召回了1997年以来的收益，其总额仅为5.86亿美元，仅为已公布收益的20%。股票价格跌到几便士，消费者和金融的繁荣都失去了。不久之后，安然公司宣布破产(普林德)。
Enron’s shareholders did not benefit from the greed of the executives. Those that had their pension funds financed in the company lost almost everything. Consequently, the SEC and Congress worked swiftly to begin immediate restructuring to reduce losses like those experienced, in the future (Cunningham and Harris 29). A $40 billion lawsuit followed the collapse, demanding compensation for the shareholders’ worthless stock. The collapse destroyed more than $2 billion in pension plans (The New York Times).
The employees of Enron also greatly suffered and in most cases lost everything that they had invested in the company (McLean and Elkind “The Guiltiest”). One employee, Charles Prestwood, lost $1.3 million in the Enron collapse. Money entrusted in the company in retirement savings or investments disbanded overnight. After the collapse, the SEC stated that they would try and recover as much of the lost money as they could in their judicial system (The New York Times).
Enron executives also felt the consequences of the collapse. Paula Rieker was charged with insider trading when she sold just under $1 million worth of shares just a week before the collapse. Skilling was charged with 24 years in prison due to mostly charges of securities fraud. Lay was charged with 45 years in prison, but died before the sentence was scheduled. Fastow was sentenced to 10 years in prison with no parole (Wikipedia).
Creditors involved with Enron struggled to receive all of the money that was owed to them. Enron sold CrossCountry Energy for $2.45 billion in order to address some of the credit outstanding. When its last business was sold, it left Enron without any assets. In 2007, the company’s name was changed and set a goal to completely repay all creditors and end all its activities (Wikipedia).
Lessons Learned from Enron安然事件的教训
The first lesson that I learned was that there needed to be significant reforms in the accounting practices that corporations utilize. It is not enough to assume that they are doing the right thing and it is important to always be skeptical (Crews 1). Conflicts of interest are an extremely detrimental crutch in accounting and it made the Enron collapse essentially imminent. By restricting which accounting firms can provide services to an organization and also controlling how those firms are getting paid is a good step in eliminating conflicts of interest.
我学到的第一课是需要对公司使用的会计实践进行重大改革。仅仅认为他们在做正确的事情是不够的，重要的是要始终保持怀疑(Crews 1)。利益冲突是会计中极其有害的支柱，它使得安然公司的倒闭迫在眉睫。通过限制会计师事务所可以为一个组织提供服务，并控制这些事务所如何获得报酬，是消除利益冲突的一个很好的步骤。
The second lesson is that the ethical choices of corporations need to be more closely monitored. If an organization is left unchecked, it has the ability to abuse the system and do whatever it wants. I believe that due to the Enron collapse people will pay more attention to how corporations operate even if they cannot directly control the ethics of the company (Silverstein). At least in this case there will be significant pressure to do what’s right.
The final lesson that I learned was organizations can be as ethical or unethical as they want. They will treat their employees, shareholders, partners, and creditors however they want. Sometimes corporations will act in their best short term interest, but there’s also the option to behave properly and look at the long term goals. Risk tolerance can be a good thing, but it is up to the corporation to decide how much risk they are going to take and at what cost are they going to take risks (Crews 8). We can do our best to regulate and criticize, but in the end it’s their call. We can only hope they do the right things.
我学到的最后一课是，组织的道德与否取决于他们的意愿。他们会按照自己的意愿对待员工、股东、合伙人和债权人。有时，公司会以最佳的短期利益行事，但也可以选择正确行事，着眼于长期目标。风险容忍度可以是一件好事,但它是由公司来决定他们需要多大的风险和代价是什么他们会冒险(人员8)。我们可以尽力调节和批评,但最终这是他们的电话。我们只能希望他们做正确的事。
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