Replying to LO27692 --
Hi There all,
>I am not so sure the demise of Enron is a scandal. But I think that it is
>indeed a great tragedy which perhaps could have been prevented.
>Furthermore, I have the gut feeling that several such tragedies are going
>to happen this year of which many, if not all, could have been
>prevented. (At de Lange)
IS the demise of Enron a tragedy? I would have thought that the plight of
the Afghan people, those in other poor countries. The continuing damage
we are doing to the environment and the like are tragedies. For the
people working for Enron the demise of the company may be a personal
tragedy - but only if it is a life destroying event. When we concider the
way that the US in particular and the West in general treats the world,
finite resources and our fellow man I would have thought that the demise
of the worlds largest (by what measure?) power company is an absolute
cause for celebration. 9/11 (or 11/9 for those of you outside the UK)
SHOULD have been a wake up call for the West that there is more happening
in this world than Wall Street, the Dow Jones etc. For a few weeks we
appeared to act as if it had. Then the US and us in the UK acting as lap
dogs decided might was right. We decided to create more martyrs and
disaffected people and perpetuate the real tragedy that is Roy Harper's
White Man's World.
Andrew Campbell in his original mail mentioned Tom Johnson. At a talk Tom
did in the UK last year he showed two (if I remember the right name)
axiomorphic systems diagrams indicating the efforts that two similar
companies put into the accounting and money management of their business.
One (Ford) expend about 50% of their effort on looking after the beans.
They as we know are in real trouble at present, the other (Toyota) expend
about 5% of their effort on looking after the pennies. In the UK our rail
infrastructure is run by a company called Railtrack. They were making
substantial losses. The government called in the receivers and
accountants were put in charge. They are now making far bigger losses
(orders of magnitude bigger). E F Schumacher clearly demonstrated that
economics should be a local (inefficient) but highly effective enterprise.
Andrew also mentioned that 4/5 of the world live on less than two dollars
per head per day. Does this not illustrate the real tragedy. Money does
not matter it is the outcomes that do, yet the (lack) of leadership
expressed in the West forces us all to pay homage to mammon and the great
god the greenback. What does it matter how much money you effectively
have per day - picking on two very rich people here - Mike Tyson has earnt
more in one fight than most of us will earn in a year, but would the world
be any the poorer without him? Bob Geldolf (when next to penniless) used
his contacts and a sense of outrage to make Live Aid happen.
The only tragedy in the demise of Enron is if we do not learn from it
(which we will not). Some other company will move in and fill the
(unsustainable) market left by it. The West will continue to treat the
rest of the world like an inexhaustible cookie jar, and in doing so create
more Osama's who we will then blame for our own failings. No there is no
tragedy in Enron, possibly there is cause for celebration, but I fear that
we will miss the point, learn diddlysquat and carry on our merry way to a
world full of riches and no value.
Roger
--Roger.
---------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------Roger C. Key mailto:roger.key@onet.co.uk Prescient - The Whole as One (44) 01639 871062 Web based training for Organisations, http://virtual-deming.com Leadership and Life!
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