The other day, my 9-year-old asked why a cartoon character on TV stood at attention, saluting as his ship sank beneath him.

“A captain is supposed to go down with the ship,” I told him, going on for a minute about duty before feeling compelled to add: “It’s kind of an old-fashioned idea.”

These days the captain’s just as likely to sell out to the pirates, loot the cargo and sneak off to an island paradise — right after telling the doomed crew that everything’s fine.

How pleasing, then, to see former Enron chief Ken Lay on the front pages July 9 in handcuffs. A federal grand jury indicted Lay on 11 felonies stemming from the energy giant’s collapse in December 2001.

Lay pleaded not guilty June 8, and it will be months before his trial. But even if he is not convicted of the criminal charges, there’s no question he’s guilty in a moral sense. While Enron was taking on water, Lay abandoned his employees and shareholders and looked after himself, pocketing millions by dumping Enron shares before the world caught on and the stock price collapsed.

If he didn’t know about the crooked schemes going on all around him, as he claims, he should have.

Lay is the poster boy for what we now call the “Enron Era,” a string of scandals involving greedy, self-dealing executives at companies such as WorldCom, Rite-Aid, Tyco, Adelphia and HealthSouth. The era also saw scandals involving accountants, Wall Street analysts and investment bankers, and, recently, mutual fund companies.

The common denominator: Investors lost money as insiders lined their pockets.

That week was a high-water mark in bringing Enron Era executives to justice. In addition to the Lay indictment, Adelphia founder John J. Rigas and his son, Timothy, were convicted of conspiring to loot the cable giant.

Of course, there was no real need to handcuff Lay, a 62-year-old not accused of anything violent and immediately released on bail. It was a perp walk for the cameras. And that’s just fine. It’s a chilling image for any executive tempted to cross the line.

Cuffs and the real possibility of prison are a far more effective deterrent than the traditional penalty for white-collar crime — a fine and pledge not to do anything wrong in the future.

Many of the Enron Era offenses were borne of the late-’90s stock market bubble, which made it enormously profitable to cheat. Does that mean we won’t see the like again?

Probably not. Greed seems to be constant; it’s the opportunity to indulge it that ebbs and flows. Most bubbles bring scandal, and we’re sure to see another bubble someday.

There have been some meaningful reforms since the Enron Era began. Accounting and auditing rules have been tightened somewhat, and chief executives must take legal responsibility for their firms’ financial statements. The maximum penalty for white-collar crime has been doubled to 10 years and we’re actually seeing criminal prosecutions, which used to be rare for white-collar crooks.

But real reform would go much farther. Accounting still falls well short of the common-sense standard — that different accountants given the same facts should get the same results.

Most importantly, publicly-traded companies remain insulated from their owners, the shareholders. The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a modest half-step in the right direction, to allow big shareholders to nominate board candidates to oppose those approved by the boards themselves. Corporate America is mounting heavy opposition.

Studies show that executive pay continues to grow far faster than employee pay, and we still see case after case of executives winning fat raises from docile directors even as their shareholders lose money.

So, sure, there’s been some reform. But going down with the ship? That’s a thing of the past.