The Futures Market and the Enron Trial
posted by Dave Hoffman
The Business Law blog has a short post today on the futures market and the Enron trial. (Shorter: the market thinks the defendants are in deep trouble.) The post, a mere two paragraphs, is worth reading, not least because it notes that Skilling’s lawyers have protested that it is “crass to ‘trade on human life.’”
This quote reminds me of a statement in a brief by the State of Mississippi about (my former) professor Kip Viscusi’s use of cost-benefit analysis in estimating health costs saved by early smoking-related deaths: such calculations were said to be “utterly repugnant to a civilized society.”
Appeals to such moral heuristics are pretty common, but it sure was suprising to see them deployed by the defense team!
February 14, 2006 at 1:49 pm
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Christine - February 16, 2006 at 9:16 am
Of course what is interesting is that Enron embraced the “markets in everything” approach, from natural gas to broadband to water to weather. So, I guess there’s a limit to that theory?
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