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.