Corporate Greed

Continuing with the floral theme I thought I'd post a picture I took at Floriade in Canberra last weekend!

Am not working today, but the good news (well good in terms of my ability to save money!) is I'm back on full-time from Monday. I still have no idea what has been going on and actually I feel it's better that I don't know - especially as I'm going to be leaving Sydney in January! Yes - have decided that I'm going to head to Europe next year and on Wednesday after work booked a ticket as I found an excellent fare to Europe via Sri Lanka. I don't actually know exactly when I'll be leaving Sydney at this point as I'm going to Perth first to see my Mum and Dad and Philip and Denis, who are coming to Australia for a friend's wedding in February. Am leaving Perth on February 19 though and at this point will be arriving in London at the beginning of May. Am planning on staying in Sri Lanka for two months, which sounds like a long time, but I want to spend some more time there with Dhanushka and his family and am thinking about doing some meditation at a centre near Kandy that a few people have told me about. I can change the dates, so if I decide I don't want to stay in Sri Lanka for that long I can continue on to Europe early. It's all very exciting, although now I have to start trying to work out what I'm going to do with my stuff. I'll be sad to leave Sydney as I have some great friends here, but I'll be back.

The title refers to a preview of a documentary I saw on Wednesday evening - 'Enron:The Smartest Guys in the Room' all about the rise and fall of Enron and corporate greed in the US. It was on at the Sydney Film Festival earlier in the year, but was one I didn't get to see, so when I saw the competition for free tickets to a preview in the weekly e-newsletter I receive from Dendy cinemas I was on to it - gotta love the Dendy! What amazed me the most was the way that no-one ever questioned how Enron was making its reported profits and the fact that so many large banks and companies were very happy to invest in Enron and recommend it to other investors despite the fact that the figures were highly dubious. The way in which Enron basically created and manipulated the California energy crisis in 2000-2001 was just unbelievable - that one company could bring one of the world's largest economies to its knees. Some of the Enron executives have been charged (and some convicted) with various offences, but for all the employees and small investors who lost so much money - often all the money they had - it won't make any difference. A fascinating and frightening look at coporate America.

Have just spoken to the lovely Ms.Suzanne and I've been put in charge of getting the gelato for our lunch date today. I think I should be able to come up with something...