enron questions 2

1. How does a Special-Purpose Entity (S.P.E.) work? Why does the "partnership" giving money to your company make a big difference? an S.P.E. is when a company uses its assets to pay for a loan
2. How did Enron pit "twists into the S.P.E. game?" What does it mean that Enron "didn't always put blue-chip assets into the partnerships"? What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E? What was Enron's guarantee? enron twisted SPE games by selling their assets for less than they were worth. With the Enron executives managing the SPE's, it was risky because the CEOs would make business deals that could lead to problems.
3. How did the world come to learn of Enron's use of S.P.E.'s? Is Gladwell correct in claiming that this is another example of a mystery? Explain. the SPE's were figured out when two reporters read the Enron transactions and their finances and wrote an article about the problem.
4. What is the difference between "scrounged up" and "downloaded?" Scrounged up is when a reporter finds something that he was not expecting to find. downloaded is when a reporter diggs deeper into a subject.
5. Why does Gladwell claim that "It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public."? Explain what Gladwell means when he says, "But here the rules seem different." Who is Andrew Fastow? gladwell states this comment because enron could not get out of the touble that they were in due to the SPEs. when gladwell says that the rules seem different it is becuase the more that the is learned about the enron Scandal, the more problems that ther are. Fastow is the Chief financial officer of Enron
6. Why has he "Disclosure Paradigm" become an anachronism? the disclosure paradigm has anachronism because then more things are revealed that have not been discussed.
7. Why did treating the German secret weapon as a mystery prove to be more useful? Specifically, how did the "propaganda analysts" (the batty geniuses) use reason to uncover the Nazi V-1 Rocket? treating the secret weapon as a mystery was more useful becuase it allowed the analysts to interpret nazi broadcasts rather than just assume that there was a nazi secret weapon. the propaganda analyists used reason to uncover the new rocket by listening to the tones of the nazi propagandists.
8. How has diagnosing Prostate Cancer transformed from a puzzle to a mystery? diagnosing prostate cancer has now become a puzzle because the more that we try to understand the growth and effects of the cancer, the less that we know about the nature of the cancer, in that the speed it develops, and the effects it produces over time.
9. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, how has "the situation facing the intelligence community has turned upside down?" the situation has been turned upside down becuase now ther is no hidden information in the world, and no need for things such as spies.
10. How does Admiral Bobby R. Inman believe the U.S. should strengthen the U.S. intelligence system? Why was his answer seen as unusual?
11. Gladwell writes: In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses.

mr. andre reflection

i liked the riddles that Mr. Andre gave for us. the riddles had us thinking out of the box and using knowledge that we know from our everyday life to solve the riddles. it was a good activity to expand on our unit of reasoning. i think that this relates to the story of spider and black deer because we are interjecting our own reasoning to create the conclusion to the question.

enron questions

1. How did Anne Beliveaux respond to Jeffrey Skilling's claim that he was "innocent of every one of these charges." What were the charges? the charge against Skilling was fraud. anne wanted Skilling to recieve the full punishment because the bankruptcy that he caused wiped out her retirement fund.

2. What was Daniel Petrocelli specifically asking Judge Lake to do? What was the response of the judge? Petrocelli wanted the judge to remove 10 months from Skills sentence, to which he replied "no."

3. What is the difference between a Puzzle and a Mystery? Be as specific as possible! Please consider why Gladwell does not believe the difference to be "trivial." Puzzles come to satisfying conclusions. a culprit can easily be found simply because he/she is the person who with held information. Mysteries can be changed and hard to interpret, and do not always come to a satisfying conclusion.

4. What does Gladwell mean when he states: "Puzzles come to satisfying conclusions. Mysteries often don't." mysteries do not come to satisfying conclusions because there is no definite end result, and the result itself can be altered and changed depending what the facts say.

5. Initially, what did most people think of the Enron scandal? Did they think it was a Mystery or a Puzzle? Why would it matter? What does Gladwell think? Most people initially think that Enron was a scandal because it was caused due to fraud on behalf of Skilling. most people think that Enron was a puzzle becuase they believed that everything was evident and that it was a matter of time before Skilling was convicted. this matters that it was puzzle becuase people would believe that Skilling was the cause of the downfall, even if he was found innocent. Gladwell believes that this is a mystery.

6. Please explain Mark-to-Market Accounting. this is an account that makes the company look like it is making more money than it really is.

7. Gladwell claims that: "When a company using mark-to-market accounting says it has made a profit of ten million dollars on revenues of a hundred million, then, it could mean one of two things..." Please explain the two possibilities. What did Wall Street Journal report Jonathan Weil's source want him to find out? one possibility was that is that teh company has the money in its account and will have the remaining after taxes, or that the money is a prediction that the company is betting on. Weil's source wanted him to find out if the money that Enron was making was "real' and not a prediction on what they were going to make.

8. What is the connection between subprime loans and Mark-to-Market Accounting? the connection between these two things is the loans that are made to people are expected to be higher that they really are.

9. Why did Weil find Enron's financial statements "sobering?" Enrons financial statements were sobering because the money that the executives though they were going to make were non existant and without this money, enron had made a loss in that year.

10. Why was James Chanos interested in Enron? Chanos was interested in Enron because he earned money by predicting companies tha will fall in stock.

11. Who was Bethany McLean? Bethany Mcean was a reporter for fortune magazine.

12. Why does Gladwell believe Watergate to be a classic puzzle? gladwell believes this is a classic watergate scandal becuase

13. Did Jonathan Weil have a Deep Throat? he did not have a Deep Throat

14. Why was Weil concerned that the officials at Enron weren't concerned about who would win the 2000 election? Weil was concerned because no matter what, the elections were not going to affect the company

15. After considering how Weil got his information, why does Gladwell believe Enron to be a mystery?

egyptogram

notes

Egyptian hieroglyphics translation

• process of elimination
• more symbols to work with over time
• use of apriori knowledge: used prior knowledge to translate

assumptions are equal to premise
deduction: applying apriori knowledge in the form of a general theory

syllogism: do not create truth, but used properly, valid arguments in a syllogism can preserve truth

example:

• premise 1: all dogs are mammals
• premise 2: fido is a dog
• conclusion: therefore, fido is a mammal

syllogism arguments are not true/false, but valid/invalid
truth: a property of a statement

Egyptogram translation

i though that the egyptogram experiment was a good idea to do for the introduction of "reason." the activity we did tested our ability to reason between symbols and letters. it also introduced us to learn through a process of elimination and the meaning of certain symbols and order to how things are conveyed.

i thought that the story about the Kpelle people was interesting in that the kpelle see a story as a whole piece, not the way that western culture sees a story, which is to contain details. in western culture we pull apart a story and interject our own reason behind it and try to interpet it. However, it appears in the Kpelle culture, people see a story as a whole and do not use their reasoning.