While I think the main points of your article are right on, as a CPA, I need to point out that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board was not set up to "to compel firms to make more pertinent and timely disclosures to investors." The PCAOB was created by SOX legislation to regulate auditors and to set auditing standards. The Financial Accounting Standards Oversight Board and the SEC, both of which existed long before the SOX legislation, are responsible for setting disclosure standards.

Thanks for writing this article. It is so rare to read anything intelligent related to Enron. I would be interested to read your analysis on Worldcom and Bernard Ebbers.

Very good piece although as a former sell-side analyst who followed Enron, I'm not as charitable towards Jeff Skilling as you appear to be. He was arrogant, condescending, and certainly knew more than he told the Street. At the same time, I agree, he was most likely convicted of the wrong things (unfortunately, arrogance is not criminal).

I would submit that Eliot Spitzer's pursuit of market timing issues in the mutual fund industry was an egregious abuse of a prosecutor's office. I had friends at Invesco who were caught up between the SEC (which had approved their actions but stood aside when Mr. Spitzer came calling) and an arrogant weasel looking to build a political career.

Bottom line is, you're correct: SarbOx does little other than add costs, while transparency is the real solution. Investors can be incredibly sophisticated and will find the problems long before our public watchdogs know something's wrong.

Thanks for a good, if lengthy, explanation of both Enron-style book-cooking and the mortgage meltdown. Agreed, the market would have corrected itself. Those who issued questionable loans deserve to be run out of business, and those who obtained sub-prime, negative amortization mortgages should have realized something wasn't right when their monthly payments were somehow less than everyone else's. Americans have the right to make decisions -- and live with the consequences, good or bad. The Constitution does not obligate - or empower - government to use taxpayer money to bail people out of a bad situation of their own making.

I agree, poor Lay and Skilling were just fallible human beings. We were so mean to these men that stole retirements from so many. We don't need to watch the people that have the economic security of the nation in their hands. They'll be honest - their interest will never trump that of the country and her people. Just a little accounting error.

Shoot, why do we even need Homeland Security? Radical Islam is just a collection of fallible human beings, too.

After a good article that demonstrates the folly of government regulation, Nicole Gelinas then falls into the same trap by asserting that government should regulate how private individuals invest their retirement funds.

Nothing whatsoever justifies the notion that the government should initiate the use of force to dictate how I invest ANY of my money, be it my retirement savings or otherwise. My money is MY MONEY -- it is my property, not the government's. It is MINE to multiply through sound investments or lose through foolish ones.