Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Tuesday 11/12/2001

The repercussions from Enron's spectacular implosion continue to rumble across the sky. Now, it looks as if the company's broadband trading unit was the last straw, costing billions but generating only paper transactions that pushed creative accounting into Pulitzer-winning territory.

Enron is a warning written so large that it's difficult to take in. Huge companies operating in multiple markets with vast amounts of power and other peoples' money need much closer scrutiny by regulators and legislators, not less. Globalisation will create more of these monster corporations, with huge responsibilities for the stability of economies and the safety of their suppliers and customers. To shrug one's shoulders and leave everything to those who stand to gain the most is to deny every lesson in history. Deregulation is dangerous. Over-regulation is dangerous, too. Balance is everything. Running things by dogma didn't work for the Soviets, and it won't work for the West -- no matter what that dogma is.