Arthur Andersen’s CEO said Enron’s business, and not poor accounting were the cause of its failure. No kidding, jerk. The point is that it was bad accounting that enabled the company to get away with hiding its poor performance and keep its stock overvalued for far too long. Markets only work when they have the information they need — Arthur Andersen’s negligence or, perhaps, malice allowed Enron to get away with hiding information that was crucial to investors (and even its own employees) for years, and ultimately to implode in the most absurd fashion possible. The fact of the matter is that if Enron hadn’t written the book on stupid accounting tricks, or if Arthur Andersen hadn’t let them get away with those tricks, the company may not be sporting a worthless stock today.