December 2nd is known for many things. It’s the birthday of Britney Spears, Charlie Puth and the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s the anniversary of the first-ever controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. And it’s the day that Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001.
It’s also the day that Enron decided to… resurrect itself from the dead? Sure, why not:
Exactly 23 years after the scandal-ridden energy enterprise went under, its name and logo are back in action. You can already buy a company hoodie for $118 and a polo for $98. Once a grift, always a grift, I suppose.
The old Enron did all the things they tell you *not* to do in Accounting 101. After a $40 billion shareholder lawsuit, the conglomerate became the poster child for financial fraud and a bunch of top executives were charged with corruption. “In 2001, or 2011, those things were bad things,” writes Matt Levine. “Nobody wanted to invest in Enron, what with it being ‘synonymous with willful corporate fraud and corruption.’” But 2024 is different: “Standards are lower, and people are up for a bit more fun. If you launched Enron Corp. on the stock exchange today — even without a business — the stock would go up, because that is funny.”
According to the new website, the revamped Enron is “dedicated to solving the global energy crisis.” And yet one of the company’s key pillars is “permissionless innovation,” which smells very crypto-scammy, not at all good for the environment and, quite frankly, overdone: RadioShack already did this, like, three years ago.
Perhaps that’s why Enron 2.0 has all the hallmarks of a parody: It appears to have used Shutterstock and iStock images in its employee testimonials. It says “Enron” is now a backronym that stands for Energy, Nurture, Repentant, Opportunity and Nice. And it even has a disclaimer saying the site is “for entertainment purposes only.” But Matt says “these days you’d say that even if you actually were launching a crypto token, or a meme stock, or for that matter an energy company.”
The sad thing is, this planet could use a company that wants to solve the global energy crisis. We have a lot of problems and very few people willing to solve them. Javier Blas says the oil cartel is inflating prices. David Fickling says a heat wave is straining Australia’s grids. Katja Hoyer says the entire continent of Europe is still reliant on Russian gas. And don’t even get F.D. Flam started on the whales.
“President-elect Donald Trump has used saving whales, of all things, as a reason he has promised to shut down all US offshore wind energy projects when he takes office,” she writes, calling the idea absurd. “Fossil fuels are not only dirtier but their extraction and transport create far more underwater noise.” It’s a shame that Enron’s employees — and Trump, for that matter — seem more interested in helping crypto whales than actual whales.
Thanksgiving Pardons
Last week, not only did Peach and Blossom get spared from slaughter, so too did President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Biden is far from the only president who has helped a loved one avoid prison: “Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter each pardoned brothers. Donald Trump pardoned his daughter’s father-in-law (whom he now says he will appoint as ambassador to France). Even Abraham Lincoln pardoned his wife Mary Todd Lincoln’s sister, whose husband had served as a Confederate general,” Noah Feldman writes.
“Seen from a human perspective,” Noah says Biden’s decision to spare his son is “about the most understandable action of his whole presidency.” But when Noah puts his Legal Scholar hat on, he says it’s a “tragedy for the republic,” and evidence of the “Trump effect.”
The previous president’s pursuit of chaos — dating back to 2016 when he promised to lock up Hillary Clinton — has muted our collective sense of shock and outrage. In turn, Noah says it’s led to “the politicization of criminal investigation and prosecution,” which will likely worsen if Kash Patel — a political operative that Barbara L. McQuade says could carry out Trump’s personal revenge tour — ends up running the FBI.
But Biden also is to blame. What Trump began, his Democratic successor intensified: “Biden’s administration made the belated — and in retrospect, disastrous — decision to seek criminal prosecution of Trump when it became clear he was a credible candidate to challenge Biden for the presidency,” Noah writes. “Now we live in a world where Democrats will hardly bat an eye at a presidential pardon for a wayward son, and in which Republican criticisms can easily be dismissed as hypocritical.”
I pardoned this link from the paywall, so you can read the whole thing for free. You’re welcome!
High Command
Elsewhere in disastrous political decisions, you have Trump’s choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. The Bloomberg Opinion editorial board says the former Fox News host is marred by a “checkered past” which seems to get uglier by the day.
Look no further than this damning account of his time as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, as reported by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer yesterday. An unearthed whistle-blower report describes Hegseth “as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity— to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.” At one such event — a tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio — a former staffer claimed Hegseth drunkenly chanted “Kill All Muslims!” At another, he reportedly brought his team to a strip club in Louisiana, where he was accused by one of his female colleagues of attempting sexual assault.
If, somehow, one was able to overlook the deeply unsettling accusations, Bloomberg’s editors still say that Hegseth is not the man for the job. “Leading an $850 billion bureaucracy that oversees nearly 3 million troops and civilian employees would be a daunting task for even the most experienced nominee,” they write. “Hegseth lacks experience of high command, as well as any background in defense policy or strategy, industrial issues, budgeting, international diplomacy, or in navigating interagency and interservice frictions.”
Instead, Hegseth seems more interested in playing the role of Woke Police: “He argues that diversity, equity and inclusion programs are sapping warfighters of their martial spirit. He wants transgender troops out of the military and women out of combat roles. He’d also like to purge ‘woke’ generals from the ranks… far from the most pressing concerns facing the US military,” the editors argue.
Telltale Charts
Tyler Cowen says humans are not hanging out in public as much as we used to. I wonder why...
To be clear, it’s not just Starbucks. McDonald’s is also to blame: “The fast-food icon raised prices in response to the spike in post-pandemic inflation only to discover that a broad swath of Americans can no longer afford Big Macs,” Nir Kaissar writes (free read). Although they’re rolling back some price hikes, Nir says the incoming Trump administration’s tariffs and deficits could stoke inflation.
Trump’s next trade war also means you can say goodbye to Cyber Monday shopping in 2025. Andrea Felsted says bargain hunters should get the good deals while they last. “No matter how adept retailers have become, there will be no sidestepping the impact of broad tariffs,” she warns.
Further Reading
Free read: Who’d want to run a western automaker like Stellantis? — Chris Bryant
Walmart’s DEI reversal isn’t all about Robby Starbuck. — Beth Kowitt
Explaining economics to Trump won’t save Mexico. — Juan Pablo Spinetto
Women’s hockey is right to be confident — but don’t get reckless. — Adam Minter
Australia’s under-16 social media ban is better than nothing. — Catherine Thorbecke
New York City can show the US how to build more housing. — Conor Sen
India can’t afford to doom the world’s carbon credit markets a second time. — Mihir Sharma
Minnesota’s state legislature is just about as evenly divided as possible. — Patricia Lopez
Investment banks will lose billions of dollars of revenue to private rivals. — Paul J. Davies
The Fed’s big monetary policy rethink needs to be better than last time. — Bill Dudley
ICYMI
Intel’s CEO got booted by the board.
The New York Philharmonic has a new chief.
Being active on social media helps the job hunt.
Kickers
New York City’s tiny duck treasure hunt.
The history of Wisconsin’s famous Kringle.
The rise of the random destination wedding.
America stopped cooking with tallow for good reason.
Area man runs 700 miles to make art. (h/t Jhodie Williams)
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