Enron, etc.

Of course, I hasten to add that they never pinned Iran-Contra on Poppy (in no small part because he pardoned Caspar Weinberger).

The entire Bush Family makes me sick to the stomach. Why can't we just be rid of these assholes?

I would think that Bush's constant pushing for (he tried to sell the deregulation bill of goods to former PA governor, current bogeyman-warner Tom Ridge) and granting of deregulation in the energy world, which both he and Enron execs said was 'better for America,' is suspect; as it's now frighteningly apparent, this was really only better for the upper management of the company—nowhere is this better evidenced than by the Enron pension plan, which didn't allow workers (but allowed execs) to dump the company's downwardly spiraling stock. Which had previously been boosted thanks to the California energy crisis.

You can't argue that, if this same situation, with its obvious abuses of power (Bush, despite his gentleman's Cs and "aw-shucks" posturing, knew what rewards he, as someone so in bed with this company's board of directors, would reap if he sold a bill of goods to PA), money, etc, had come up three or four years ago, people wouldn't be screaming for the President's head. You just can't, I'm sorry.

And yes I do in fact have very many beefs with Bill Clinton, so please don't go calling me an "apologist," thank you very much.

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.

"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.

"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."

What happened between 5/18 (LA Times story breaks) until 6/2 (makes national news)?

i was basically responding that what hstencil was saying in particular wasnt really news. i mean, the rest is.. when you have a trader saying 'WE BE ROBBIN' thats no good. however, i think the link to the higher ups is tenuous at best and has to be proven with supporting documentation and whatnot. if you dont, you just deny it and move on.

I wouldn't rule out the complexity factor here. The whole concept and practice of energy trading is arcane and complex. Not only does the tv-viewing audience not understand it (and remember, tv is where 85 - 90% of americans receive their news) and therefore does not really want to hear about it, the various reporters, producers, and anchors in the news-gathering chain don't understand it either. If a story ever involves too many layers, or is past x robbed y, you won't see it getting much coverage. Print is SOMEWHAT different, and yet, keep in mind that USA Today is the largest selling paper, and it's only marginally more useful than the Onion for figuring out what's going on in the world, and not as insightful. Moral of story: if you're going to be a bad guy, dream up a boring, complicated scheme. And don't sleep with any interns.

now explaining energy deregulation in california and how price ceilings affect all of that is pretty damn complex. its my understanding that if you want to put a positive spin on the enron people its that they believed that california's deregulation was half hearted and crappy, and that the intervention of the federal government w/ price caps would only muddy the waters even further. those enron guys were all about the purity of the market making things great for customers, business, etc. (although their bonuses and making money hand over fist were probably of the greatest importance).

in word, not deed.

Thankfully, I don't want to put a positive spin on Enron, I think they were crooks. Or, probably more accurately, I think that there were some big crooks there, and a lot more people who thought they were playing cowboys and indians in a gray area that wasn't necessarily illegal but certainly iffy.

Because utilities are legal monopolies, the prices they charge are set by state utility regulatory boards, federal and state corporate income taxes are some of the expenses to be included in rates paid by customers. Historically, the regulators assumed that whatever taxes were included in electric rates would then actually be paid by the utility or its parent, though the rise of tax shelters and changes in federal tax law have raised questions about whether that assumption remains valid.

The judge's order, made on Friday, comes as a group of Texas investors is trying to buy Portland General Electric under terms that would allow it to collect $92 million a year for taxes that it would not necessarily have to pay to the federal and state governments. The intended buyer, the Texas Pacific Group, has said that it will not promise to return to ratepayers any taxes it collects but does not have to pay.

An owner, like Enron, that can earn the 10.5 percent profit on investment set by utility regulators and then pocket the tax money as well could earn more than 20 percent annually on its investment in a utility.

Pamela Lesh, Portland General Electric's vice president for regulatory affairs, said that state law entitled the company to collect money to cover the corporate income taxes that it would owe as a stand-alone company even if those taxes were never paid by its parent company.

The judge ruled in a case brought by Dan Meek, a lawyer who runs the Utility Reform Project, a local watchdog group. Mr. Meek publicized the decision on Wednesday.

Last year, after court and Congressional proceedings showed that Enron did not pay taxes for years, he asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission to inquire into whether the taxes included in Portland General Electric's rates were actually being turned over to governments.

Portland General Electric said the question was improper, and the commission agreed.

Both the utility and the commission said that even if fraud were involved in setting rates - and they insisted it was not - the rates could never be reviewed once they were set under what is known as the filed-rate doctrine.

Judge Don A. Dickey of Oregon Circuit Court in Salem, the state capital, rejected the commission's position. His decision cited an earlier decision in another Portland General Electric case, also brought by Mr. Meek, in which the company continues to earn profits and collect taxes from customers for a nuclear power plant that has been shut down.

But five words he put in parenthesis gave hope to Portland General Electric that it would prevail at a hearing by suggesting that the ultimate issue was not whether the government ultimately received any taxes but whether the utility would have owed the taxes if it were a stand-alone enterprise that filed its own tax returns.

"Charging ratepayers for purported P.G.E. taxes without requiring proof that the taxes were reasonable estimates of actual taxes (on a stand-alone basis) upon a claim of fraud is the issue," the judge wrote. "If true, such would be illegal."

Mr. Meek said that he expected the Oregon Public Utility Commission to hold a hearing eventually and then to find that Portland General Electric customers could be required to pay for taxes that the government may not collect.

"What will happen after a hearing?" Mr. Meek said. "Nothing. I expect the Oregon P.U.C. to continue to require ratepayers to pay $93 million a year for federal and state income taxes that nobody is actually paying over to the government."

"The fact is that Enron is in bankruptcy; it is not paying taxes," he added. "Yet tax money is still flowing from ratepayers and going to Enron at the rate of $254,000 a day."

Portland General Electric confirmed that, to the best of its knowledge, the only state corporate income tax paid by the company since 1997 was a single $10 payment in 2002.

From 1995 to 2000, the five years of the Wall Street bubble when corporate profits soared, more than 60 percent of corporations paid no federal income taxes, according to a recent study by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The idea that utility customers are being charged for taxes that the government never sees has enraged many people here.

"If Portland General Electric is charging us for taxes that are not actually paid to the government, that is just stealing," said Kenneth Lewis, a retired cargo company executive.

California Ordered to Refund Enron $270M
Wed Jun 16, 7:09 AM ET

By JENNIFER COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As California struggled through the 2000-2001 energy crisis, Enron traders gloated about gouging the state. Now state Attorney General Bill Lockyer says federal regulators are heaping insult upon injury by demanding California pay Enron and other energy companies almost $270 million in refunds.

In a motion filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Lockyer said the refunds would reward "the sellers a second time for their market manipulation activities and predatory pricing."

The order was particularly unfair considering recent evidence of market manipulation by energy generators, Lockyer said in an interview Tuesday.

Transcripts have been released of Enron Corp. traders openly and gleefully discussing creating congestion on transmission lines, taking power plants off-line to pump up electricity prices and other manipulation of the California power market.

But FERC has ordered refunds and is calculating how much power companies owe in overcharges from the energy crisis. At issue are megawatts bought and sold through the Independent System Operator, the manager of the state's power grid.

The May order makes it clear that the agency's refund order includes $2.9 billion worth of electricity purchases made by California energy traders in 2001, when the state stepped in to buy power on behalf of three nearly bankrupt utilities.

In his filing on Monday, Lockyer said the state's power buys helped the ISO secure enough energy to keep the lights on. State buyers bought power at the high market price, then resold it at the state's cost "in order to protect California's electricity grid from blackouts."

Most of the state's electricity purchases were used by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

But some of the power sold into the ISO market was bought by other energy companies, such as Enron. Those are the sales subject to the refund order.

FERC spokesman Bryan Lee said he couldn't comment because the matter was pending before the commission. But in its order, FERC said the state's power trades should be treated the same as other wholesalers.

Because the state bought a lot of power, it will be entitled to refunds nearly equal to what it has to pay in refunds, FERC said.

Gary Ackerman, executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum, said the state was acting as an energy company when it sold power to the ISO, so it should be held to the same rules.

Because the spot market price was ruled too high, FERC set a new benchmark for what power should have cost.

"Any seller who sold at prices above the benchmark will have to refund the difference," said Ackerman, whose group represents electricity sellers. "No one is exempt."

The refunds California could have to pay would go to a variety of energy traders and wholesalers, including: $23 million to Enron; Reliant Energy, $33.7 million; Williams, $25 million; Dynegy, $16.1 million; Mirant, $26.7 million; and $33.2 million to Duke.

Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne said the energy company's lawyers hadn't seen Lockyer's motion and any response would be filed with FERC.

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 15, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(06-15) 17:16 PDT (AP) --

Excerpts of transcripts of telephone calls between Enron Corp. traders during California's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.

"The magical word of the day is 'burn, baby, burn."' -- a reference to a fire in California under a power line that caused a transmission outage, letting Enron take advantage of an increased demand for electricity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, uh, somebody's figured out how to set congestion?" an unnamed trader asks.
"Well, we ... we can set it if we want. I mean, it's not a hard game to do ..." replies Jeffrey Richter, a former Enron trader who has since pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another transcript a trader asks about "all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California."
"Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she's the one who couldn't figure out how to (expletive) vote on the butterfly ballot," a second Enron trader responds.

"Yeah, now she wants her (expletive) money back for all the power you've charged right up -- jammed right up her (expletive) for (expletive) 250 dollars a megawatt hour," the first trader says.

-- __ Excerpts of public statements made by former Enron CEO and President Jeffrey Skilling during the same time period:

"If we were involved in creating the kind of price volatility that occured in California, then we are the stupidest people in the world. It has hammered our stock price and it has probably in some ways created a resistance to additional liberalization of amrkets, which is what we built our entire business on. There has been no positive to come out of California for Enron Corp., and yet we're catching all this grief..." -- Skilling, then-chief executive and president of Enron Corp., in a July 2001 interview with The Associated Press.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What has happened thus far, primarily in the House, should be cause for concern of every American. The entire management and board of Enron has been labeled everything from hucksters to criminals, with a complete disregard for the facts and evidence assembled.
"These untruths shatter lives, and they do nothing to advance the public understanding of what happened at Enron. The framers of the Bill of Rights are watching. My dilemma, like that of other innocents called before these committees, is whether to take refuge in constitutional protections to avoid your questions or stand on the constitutional presumption of innocence to proclaim the truth. I am here and prepared to answer the committee's questions because I have nothing to hide." -- Skilling, testifying at a Senate Commerce Committee on Feb. 26, 2002.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"California, they just put together a crazy system."
"The markets in California are the most regulated markets in North America today. And that's what is causing the problem." -- Skilling, in an article from March 27, 2001.

Source: Taped transcripts submitted as part of court case in Washington state; Skilling statements

Skilling, Enron's former chief executive officer, is seen as 72 percent likely to be convicted of more than 16 of 28 charges.

More relevant -- this bit from what I can get from the Wall Street Journal site:

Overturning the verdicts will be a longshot, legal specialists say. "Your typical white-collar defendant has a better chance of winning a Golden Globe award than getting his conviction reversed in the Fifth Circuit," says one lawyer.

I haven't followed this case super closely, but I'm not 100% sure that Lay had a legal culpability here - (not saying he didn't either) - I haven't seen enough to convict him though... (again - I'm not really following all the details.)

Please bring this up during the sentencing!

But Kenneth L. Lay has yet to emerge. CNBC reported a few minutes ago that Lay and his family, as well as his lawyers and much of the Lay team, had joined hands in a circle of prayer, along with Lay's longtime pastor, Stephen Wende, inside the court house.

Lay had said all along that the verdict was in God's hands.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/05/guilty.html

"Boards who [sic] consistently operate at variance with shareholder interests (i.e., who do not maximize share values) will see the values of their firm's shares fall, other things equal. As the shares become cheaper, the firm becomes a more attractive target for takeover. Even barring takeover (because of, say, a poison pill provision), a persistent abuse of shareholders interests must eventually result in bankruptcy. In either instance, assets will be stripped from the self-dealing board's control and surrendered to others who may be better able to enhance share values. Indeed, the recent spate of corporate scandals has, if anything, provided vivid testimony as to how quickly and efficiently this market process works in practice."

-Wendy Gramm, Enron Board of Directors, sold stock for 300,000 in 1999 (claimed Directors shouldn't be investors), made $2 M off Enron, Wife of Senator Phil Gramm.

Not in Jail.

The JBC - "Sixteen Years" - a light sentence, as it turns out.

"Now why can't you people leave me alone. You make it seem like I did something."

"I didn't quite bribe anyone enough, I gotta admit!"

"That comment that ... you just can't turn off a lifestyle like that like a spigot — what kind of jive is that?"

"Despite what happened today, I'm still a very blessed man. At my left is this beautiful lady that's my wife. I have a very warm, loving family. And, most of all I believe God, in fact, is in control and that, indeed God works all things good for all who love the lord. We love our lord, all this will work for good."

Of course. Now about that book of Job...

He could pull a Clinton, and wait until his last day in office.

KEN LAY DEAD. WHICH PILL DIDD HE TAEK.

If nothing else, we don't have to be bored by his appeal process. Though I'm sure the family will whine he was hounded to death and all that.

Legal analysts said the ruling by a federal judge in Houston closely hewed to long-held doctrine, which allows defendants to vacate their convictions if they die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. The law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said.

can anyone recommend a good book on the enron scandal?

Conspiracy of Fools by Eichenwald is probably the best one but its mostly in narrative form and alot of it is basically made up since theres dialogue and whatnot.

Enron!

can anyone recommend a good book on the enron scandal?

Both the book and movie of The Smartest Guys In The Room are pretty good.

did these guys ever put out another album?

Has anyone seen the Enron play by Lucy Prebble? It is amazingly good.

If such great art can come from corporate malfeasance then is corruption really such a bad thing?

Son of ex-Enron exec Skilling found dead in California

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_skilling_son_death/print

Skilling released from prison:
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Skilling-out-of-prison-sent-to-halfway-house-in-13194674.php
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/jeff-skilling-enron-return/

We're back!

https://enron.com/

Lovely to see Enron speak their truth and refuse to let their history define them.

Might apply for a job there

Lol might be the most high concept troll ever judging by this discovery

first
amendment
protected
parody https://t.co/gLKxQaZvsr pic.twitter.com/r1W0Ao8cVJ

— rad (winter arc) (@durararadu) December 2, 2024

Fapp