Foreword
At its peak in the year 2000, Enron Corporation, the huge, Houston-based energy trader, was the seventh largest company in the United States, worth $70 billion. A year later, it became the biggest company in U.S. history to go bankrupt, its stock having plunged from $80 to less than $1 a share. Enron’s collapse left thousands of employees out of work and thousands of investors — including most of the company’s employees — with worthless stock. Many lost virtually all the savings in their retirement plans. The Enron scandal, as it became known, highlighted the rapid growth and the minimal…