I watched a documentary on CBC late last night about the Enron scam, and part of that report featured taped conversations by the Enron traders, who were giddy about the fact they were all getting rich by stealing from California through manipulation of the hydro-electric market. The sound bites were as nasty as anyone could imagine, raw greed at its worst. In hindsight it is very obvious now that the participants knew they were doing something illegal and the market players could tell something was not right, but not one of the experts, nor the regulators, could put any evidence on the table while it was going on. They were either involved in the scam, or were unable to PROVE that there was anything illegal going on. Once Enron collapsed and the forensic accountants gained access to the private internal documents, it became obvious. All in hindsight...

cheers!

mike