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Printer-Friendly ModeNY Times vet delivers lecture
October 19, 2009 —
Senior writer and investigative reporter for the New York Times Kurt Eichenwald visited campus Wednesday to talk about faith in financial institutions.
Eichenwald, a 20-year veteran of the Times and author of the book that inspired the recent Matt Damon film The Informant!, delivered his lecture titled “Welcome to the Apocalypse: The Long Road to America’s Worst Financial Crisis and What it Means for Governments, Companies, and the Country?”
Eichenwald introduced himself to a crowd in the Malcolm Field Theatre for the Performing Arts as the “corporate scandal guy.” Through his work, the writer found his niche in uncovering corporate scandals on Wall Street.
Faculty, students and lifelonglearning members listened as he addressed Wall Street from his perspective.
He spoke of insider trading scandals, the dot-com era and what he called “dumb business sense” in major corporations.
A key theme in his lecture was faith — not that in any religious higher power, but corporate faith in business decisions made to increase profits that make no sense.
“A large number of stars, of industry and finance, cannot use common sense,” Eichenwald said.
A prime example, he said, was American Airlines Inc., a corporation that once used a business plan to sell more seats than they had available on their planes. The plan created disastrous results for the airline, but its executives found faith in it, even if it made little sense on paper.
Eichenwald spent a good portion of the lecture discussing the failures of Enron – once a leading American energy company that went bankrupt in 2001 and has since become synonymous with corporate greed and fraud.
He highlighted Enron’s financial mistakes, again categorizing them as faith-based decisions centering on poor business plans.
Ash Lee Hansinger, a social work sophomore who attended the lecture, said the Enron discussion related to a documentary she viewed in a class on the collapse of the economy.
“Enron’s higher ups were not always smart in their business plans,” she said. “The logic was not in there.”
The lecture ended on a note of personal responsibility in which Eichenwald said, “We need to be smarter in our investments and suspend our belief in faith. Faith does not work. Logic does.”
History major Jim Hughes said the lecture made a lot of sense, but he thinks there’s a deeper issue.
“We will not have people making smarter investments until we begin teaching about money and investing in the grade schools,” he said.
Eichenwald lectures around the country about corporate scandal. His extensive knowledge on the fall of Enron provided the basis for his 2005 bestseller Conspiracy of Fools.
The Dow visiting scholar does have hope for the future.
“I am confident that the American public is smart enough to know where we put our money,” Eichenwald said.
“Logical investments can lead to a great financial change in America.”