[Ohio]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

I am reading about the Enron collapse which was all about this one crook named Fastow who is eerily reminiscent of WL in certain respects. Many people in the company felt he was naive, a fool, poorly educated, a lightweight, and made incredibly foolish blunders in some of the things he said.

However he was very vindictive, anyone who said a word against him got fired, or reassigned to the far reaches of the company. He had a small cadre of very loyal underlings (think PL, etc). They were more than happy to be criminal in return for lots and lots of extra money.

Finally, he portrayed himself as the greatest CFO, who was doing "unique" and "creative" things. Anyone who disagreed with him was a cow who lacked creativity. They were lambasted for being overly focused on rules.

It is very clear in hindsight that his actions were criminal, what is not so clear is if he realized he was a criminal and the whole spiel was simply a scam, or if he was so naive as to be deceived as well.

Anyway his MO was jedi mind tricks to cheat on the taxes and earnings statements.

These megalomanics all have a few things in common:

• Exaggerated sense of self worth
• Deep feeling that laws are for others
• Disdainful, condescending attitude
• Dismissed or attacked all critics
• Maintain cadre of minions who placed loyalty above integrity
• Ingrained conviction of self-righteousness
• Permitted no peers who might provide balance
• Become very successful in the short term fueling bad behavior