‘‘Interpreting those rules has always been more
art than science, reliant in no small part on the
good faith of those applying them in everyday
situations. For very smart people who saw the
rules as something to be gotten around, well, it
wasn’t all that hard to do – in fact; some former
Enron employees argue that the rules themselves
provided a road map. And Enron, which prided
itself on employing only the very smartest people,
took that view further than any company that’s ever existed. ‘‘We tried to aggressively use
the literature to our advantage,’’ admits a former
Enron accountant. ‘‘All the rules create all these
opportunities. We got to where we did because
we exploited that weakness.’’