Whether the Enron situation turns out to be a political scandal or just a case of very bad decisions by a very big company remains to be seen. As Congress and other government agencies investigate the sudden failure of the former seventh largest company in the nation, here are the basics you need to know about Enron.

What did Enron make?
Enron didn't really "make" anything. Enron acted as the "middleman" in large natural gas and electricity deals. Enron always admitted it was hard to define their "business" in one sentence, but they finally came up with: "we make commodity markets so that we can deliver physical commodities to our customers at a predictable price." See? Since Enron did not really produce a product, the failure of the once-seventh largest company in America will not really hurt the economy. [Enron's Products & Services]

Why did Enron fail?
In November 2001 it became known that since 1997, Enron (ENE-NYSE) had left many of its debts "off the books" and had overstated profits by some $400 million in its annual reports. Based on those falsified reports, investors and thousands of Enron employees decided to buy or hold Enron stock and options. Shortly after the disclosure of the misrepresented profits, Enron's independent auditors, Big-Five accounting giant Arthur Andersen, admitted it had incorrectly approved Enron's flawed profit statements and had even destroyed documents related to Enron -- a cardinal sin in the accounting business. With confidence in the company shattered, Wall Street quickly soured on Enron. Shares of Enron plummeted from almost $90 per share to mere pennies. On Dec. 2, 2001, Enron filed for protection in the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Needless to say, Arthur Andersen's future in the auditing business is now none to bright, either. [Current Enron stock price]

Who asked the government to help Enron?
Robert E. Rubin, Treasury Secretary under former President Clinton, called the Treasury and asked undersecretary for domestic finance Peter Fisher "what he thought of the idea" of the U.S. Treasury persuading bond-rating agencies to hold off reducing the freefalling Enron's credit rating. This sounded like a good idea to Rubin, who was acting in his new capacity as CEO of Citigroup, one of Enron's top creditors. Fisher did not think much at all of the idea and the Treasury took no action to "help" Enron. 

On the same day Enron filed for bankruptcy, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan revealed that they had all received calls from Enron's CEO, Kenneth L. Lay asking for assistance during Enron's downward spiral. Attorney General John Ashcroft, having received contributions from Enron during his 2000 campaign for Senate, recused himself from the government's criminal investigation. Lay was also the largest individual contributor to President Bush's presidential campaign.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.-Connecticut), stated he had seen no evidence that any member of the Bush administration had taken any action to aid Enron.

How is government involved in the Enron debacle?
Congress is more than a little concerned with both the circumstances and effects of Enron's fall. Thousands of Enron employees are now unemployed. Made up of nothing but 401(k) accounts filled with of now-nearly worthless Enron stock, their pensions, like their jobs, are gone. 

• The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating allegations that Enron's executives, based on insider knowledge of the company's fatal flaws, sold their stock before the price dropped. If that proves to be true, "there's going to be heck to pay," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delaware). 

• Enron executives attended many meetings of Vice President Chaney's energy task force that produced President Bush's National Energy Policy adopted last summer. Congress is now considering filing a suit forcing Cheney to turn over records of those meetings. The White House has so far refused to deliver the records voluntarily. 

• The House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked Arthur Andersen to turn over hundreds of documents from the firm's audits of Enron. The Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations went beyond asking and issued 51 subpoenas to Enron and Andersen demanding the documents.

• Despite Enron's sizable contributions to President Bush's campaign, there is no evidence that the Bush administration intervened to help Enron after it's financial problems became known.