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Umm... Enron, peeps?

  
 
No star here laces
08:17 / 15.01.02
So I know it has nothing to do with congratulating oneself on one's distance from society and the politics of joke telling, or which exact word you like to use to describe your sexuality but...

The Enron affairis:

World's largest ever bankruptcy.

Proven links with the President.

Arthur Andersen destroy evidence.

Thousands of employees lose everything.

Is this the moment the popular tide turns against unregulated capitalism?

Can Bush (and his administration) ride this one out?

Will criminal proceedings result in a conviction and jail time for Kenneth Lay?

Are corporations really the issue anymore, or is it high-level executive banditry like this that fucks everything up?

[ 15-01-2002: Message edited by: Lyra Lovelaces ]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:14 / 15.01.02
Maybe it would be good to start by offering resources for those who feel woefully under-informed about the whole Enron thing (like me) - Enron for dummies as it were. To start with, the BBC has a basic Q & A here.

Now, can someone explain the direct links to Bush, apart from the fact that Enron gave him lots of money? Or is that alone the basis of the scandal?
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
11:21 / 15.01.02
I've said it before and I'll say it again "Aye Carumba"............ er that should read "One Term"
 
 
Cherry Bomb
11:27 / 15.01.02
Here's a couple. Unfortunately they want me to do some actual work this morning so I don't have a lot of time to sort these and you'll be on your own finding more info online.

1: Though Enron did in fact give plenty of money both to democrats and republicans, and Enron CEO played golf with Clinton and stayed in the Lincoln bedroom while he was president, NO SINGLE CANDIDATE has ever gotten more money from any company as Enron gave to the Bush campaign. That includes from the time he was governor of Texas right on into campaign 2000.

2. Bush & Cheney are trying to distance themselves from their relationship with CEO Ken Lay. But whatever their relationship is, Bush and Lay have known each other since the early 90s.

3. Enron folks met with Dick Cheney several times while he was working on the Energy comitee, before the Bush administration's energy policies were released.

4. When the proverbial shit started to hit the fan, Enron representatives did attempt to contact the white house for help. This REALLY puts the Bush administration between a rock and a hard place. Because if they DID help, then it looks like they did special favors for Enron. But if they DIDN't help, it looks like they just didn't care enough to step in. I don't know how they're gonna paint this one.

5. Enron froze the retirement assets of their employees allegedly because they were switching administrators in early October. This is how the employees really got screwed. While the big execs were ALL able to dump their stocks before they took a nosedive, employees (who had been encouraged by Enron to put their money into 401Ks consisting of up to over 60% Enron stocks) lost in many cases some cases their entire retirement savings. Needless to say there's more than a few class action lawsuits floating about at the moment.

Sorry I can't post a direct link to any direct article. This is just what I've learned since I started following this mess back in October.

More information at
http://www.newyorktimes.com http://www.alternet.org http://www.counterpunch.org
 
 
No star here laces
11:27 / 15.01.02
Bush and Kenneth Lay (chairman of Enron) go way back. Bush calls him 'Kenny-boy'. When Bush was governor of Texas, him, Kenny-boy and a bunch of oil profiteers sat down and drew up a regulatory charter for energy companies that basically said they can do what the fuck they like. Which is why the air quality in Tx is so shitty.

Enron has been the single biggest sponsor of Bush's political career. His administration is laden with ex-Enron bigwigs, and many of his staff have received large personal payments from Enron.

This year Enron executives basically swindled their investors and employees by covering up their poor performance. But Bush and many members of his administration have been in talks with Enron all year about how to help the company, which makes them accessories to this swindle as they must have had some knowledge of Enron's problems.

That's the story in a nutshell. More on the implications once someone else posts...
 
 
Cherry Bomb
11:35 / 15.01.02
The Bush administration is trying to play down the "Kenny Boy" thing by saying that Bush gives everyone, even reporters "goofy nicknames." But it's impossible to deny Lay's business relationships both with W and HW Bush.
 
 
No star here laces
11:51 / 15.01.02
To me the most significant thing is that the de-regulating, neoliberal element made Enron a poster-child for their policies.

De-regulating utility supply allowed Enron to make all its money. Classic neoliberal economics would hold that this is a good thing as this money will trickle down to all levels of the population. Particularly as 'ordinary people' can buy shares in such companies and thereby get rich.

Furthermore, in theory, fair competition will ensure that consumers get a good deal and that environmental damage is kept to a minimum.

Enron fucks this model up in many ways.

Number one, its executives are clearly a bunch of unscrupulous, profiteering bandits. Money didn't 'trickle down' because they skimmed it all off into slush funds and shell companies. They made money even as the company faltered, just as the rich always turn a situation to their advantage.

Number two - Enron employees were encouraged to take share options and invest in the company through the pension scheme, in lieu of more traditional benefits. Neoliberalism holds that this is preferable as it allows the individual to control his investment. Unfortunately Enron prevented these small investors from selling their shares, so the ordinary people were the big losers when the company collapsed.

Number three - energy deregulation resulted from lobbying by Enron execs, and backhanders paid to politicians like Bush. So by definition the competitive playing field was never level - Enron and the other companies who had the ear of the politicians could run a virtual monopoly and therefore screw the consumer without the irritation of any real competition undercutting them on price.

I would say this is one of the final nails in the coffin of neoliberalism, following on as it does from the dotcom collapse and the ensuing recession. I would guess that we will have to see greater regulation of corporate behaviour and fair trading in the wake of this.

Perhaps more interestingly - what will happen to Kenny-Boy et al? THese people are clearly criminals, who even aside from the disgusting and illegal behaviour of their company in India, have perpetrated a massive swindle against thousands of Americans, and become fantastically rich as a result. Will they face jail? Will they hell. And how many more of them are there out there? There are probably hundreds of Enrons waiting to happen...
 
 
sleazenation
11:51 / 15.01.02
feeling particularly apathetic to this news. How is this different from every other accusation that has failed to rock the office of president in recent years, or any other tale of big fat greedy crook executives getting away with billions of pounds of other peoples money?
 
 
No star here laces
12:12 / 15.01.02
Sheer scale. They have to write off $500 billion from the economy. This is going to fuck shit up big style. This is like a small European nation going bankrupt...
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
15:41 / 15.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:
- what will happen to Kenny-Boy et al? THese people are clearly criminals....and have perpetrated a massive swindle against thousands of Americans, and become fantastically rich as a result. Will they face jail? Will they hell.

There's no way you can describe the higher-ups as anything other than unscrupulous lying bastards that have ruined lives (in the news a couple days ago, a woman was telling some government group about how her retirement fund dropped from $700,000 to $25,000). But they won't face any jail time not because they've given money to all sorts of politicians (plenty of them had stock in Enron too, and they lost a good bit of money) but because they really haven't broken any laws. Yes, they lied to their employees (an email telling them the company's doing better than ever, don't worry, oh by the way you can't sell any stock right now) while they sold their shares and made millions and millions of dollars off of cheating their own workers. But, as what's-his-name, the guy from the Federal Govt. investigating said, "This is an example of the beauty of capitalism." Yes, he used the word "Beauty". His take is that while it's unfortunate, it's their own fault for investing in a shady company.

On a lighter side, the CEO's themselves and not the company are being sued by all sorts of people, so maybe some will get some sort of justice. And, as a result of this whole Enron mess, apparently Argentina has stated that it doesn't want "American style" capitalism anymore and will be trying to design a different system of capitalism. Go Argentina.

[ 15-01-2002: Message edited by: Johnny the Zen bastard ]
 
 
odd jest on horn
06:07 / 16.01.02
well they did break some american laws, actually. called insider trading. they knew it was going down the shithole. didn't tell anyone about but sold while they could. that's almost the definition of insider trading.

more here. though not much. http://www.businesstoday.com/business/business/enron212052001.htm
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:11 / 16.01.02
Kind of off the subject slightly, but I did find it kind of amusing that until fairly recently, (ie just before it all went to shit) Goldman Sachs analysts were rating Enron as a good buy largely because they admired its policy of not giving out too much information...

Back to the point, unfortunately I don't think the scandal's gonna do anything major to harm the Bush administration, for the very sad reason that I don't think anyone actually cares. (Believe me, I've been having to follow this story at work for various clients, and I did have kind of high hopes about a week ago, but...)
 
  
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