Details of the collapse of Enron are coming out. It’s shaping up to be a huge scandal. In a news analysis in The Times:
- “Elements of a classic political scandal are here: A Texas corporation, led by Mr. Bush’s most generous campaign contributor, files the largest bankruptcy petition in American history. A handful of Enron executives are able to sell $1 billion worth of the company’s stock before its collapse, but thousands of employees are barred from selling, losing their life’s savings and their retirement accounts.”
The bankruptcy of Enron is the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. Coincidently, many of the white-collar con artists at Enron are best buds with Bush, Cheney, and the cabinet. The Department of Justice is ‘investigating’, but Attorney-General Ashcroft is removing himself from the investigation due to the fact that Enron bankrolled his failed senate re-election campaign.
Enron helped write our national energy plan. We won’t know all the details until the Bush administration stops stonewalling. In an effort to control the situation and contain political damage, the Bush administration disclosed that Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron and contributor to Bush’s campaign warchest, had called upon two members of the Bush cabinet, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, to solicit a government bailout.
- Some details:
- Enron paid out $55.7 million out to 500 select people prior to filing for bankruptcy protection. Meanwhile, laid-off employees who were not allowed to sell the company stock in their portfolios go home with zilch.
- Fraud, fraud. The crooks high-class thieves lined their pockets. Enron Corp. executives and directors earned nearly $600 million from selling company stock over the past four years, with many individuals topping $12 million in the past year alone, according to trading data.
- “Also on Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that she has the authority to freeze $1.1 billion in assets belonging to Enron executives. The ruling relates to a lawsuit from Amalgamated Bank that alleges that Enron executives artificially inflated the price of the company’s stock.
The bank claims that Enron insiders gained at least $1.1 billion by selling more than 17.3 million shares of stock during the past three years.” - An audit reveals the firm which handles Enron’s books, Arthur Andersen LLP, destroyed “significant but undetermined” number of documents related to the company.
- Cheney met with Enron officials 6 times in 2001 while working on the nation’s energy plan! I feel safe now. The foxes are guarding the hen house.
Read the full Public Citizen report, Blind Faith: How Deregulation and Enron’s Influence Over Government Looted Billions from Americans:
- After Enron Corp. used its vast web of political connections to win December 2000 passage of commodities trading legislation that helped the company shield its energy trading activities from government scrutiny, California’s energy crisis suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse as artificial supply shortages led to frequent rolling blackouts, according to a new Public Citizen report released Friday.
The legislation reducing government oversight of energy trading was muscled through Congress — without a Senate committee hearing — with the aid of U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over the legislation he co-sponsored, but he chose to bypass his committee, and the bill was quietly tacked onto a “must-pass” appropriations bill late in the session. Gramm’s wife, Wendy Gramm, also aided Enron’s rise to power. As chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption on Jan. 14, 1993, just as she was about to leave office. Five weeks later, she joined Enron’s board of directors, where she served on the board’s audit committee and had access to key financial information about the company.