Enron Bankruptcy "Bombshell"

CBSNEWS ^ | Friday, January 11, 2002

[JohnHuang2]

In short, this is simply Dumbocrap hardball, trying to defame our Chief Executive during a time of national crisis, a time which calls for his undivided attention.

That's exactly right on the money, my friend. Which is why I believe the Dems are inadvertantly planting the seeds of a public backlash.

[RJCogburn]

A 'cover-up' is essential for a "scandal" to metastasize.

Good point.

[jackbill]

I think I first heard yesterday that C-SPAN is planning a whole week of shows next week on the Enron bankruptcy. I'm certainly hearing announcements today of the week of shows. It would be interesting to know when C-SPAN made this scheduling decision. It's disgraceful the extent to which C-SPAN has become a propaganda outfit for the DemocRATic Party.

Brian Lamb was taking some heat for this, this morning. I think it was (is) a dumb decision. Other than showing some clips of previous Congressional hearings, just what can they talk about? There isn't enough known about the Enron situation yet. The "series" is premature, I think.

But you can bet your bippy that the DemocRATs and their Liberal Media flunkies will attempt to make it a political problem.

I don't plan to watch it. Better things to do. And I'll be sending Brian Lamb my opinion as well.

[zog]

--yes, but if the statements were false, it was up to enron execs to fire them and correct the matter and notify the SEC then, correct? I am assuming this didn't happen, haven't followed the background to this as close as I could.

I feel sorry for the employees who put their trust and retirement into magic beans "stock" scams, the rest of those execs and upper management and the accountants and the politicians with their hands out for cash can go hang far as I am concerned, and I hope the investigation nails everyone involved, no matter who they are, or where they are. No sacred cows, if there's democrat crooks, hang em, republican crooks, hang em, full prosecution. I'd also like to see a reopening of every financial scandal of the last twenty years, you name it, I'd like to see it, whitewater to BCCI to the S&L scandals, and throw in the 'drug war' and smuggling and money laundering to boot, oh ya, illegal immigration and fast track free trading. plenty of scandals to choose from. "Government by bribe" is the major cause of "bad government", IMO.

[hgro]

Enron was a typical PONZI scheme and many, many insiders in the company had to be aware of it. Mr. Lay will find out in a hurry that dumping money on politicians won't have purchased loyalty from them now or in the future.

Hopefully, he and all of his insider buddies at Enron will have an opportunity to contemplate their misdeeds from behind bars. In view of all of the thieves that gave slick willie and his witch so much money - Loral being one, none of them ever paid for it and that includes the Chinese commies.

[JohnHuang2]

Hopefully, he and all of his insider buddies at Enron will have an opportunity to contemplate their misdeeds from behind bars.

Hear, hear. Bastards, all of them.

[okiedust]

I tend to agree with you that the public only notices 1. that something bad happened, and 2. that the press always casts it in association with repubs. However, something has changed, I think, and people now are begining to understand that cause happens before effect is felt, and the Clinton years are slowly begining to be viewed as "cause." Perceptions can be very stubborn things to erase once they are in place, and I do think 9/11 changed things. The incompetance of the Clinton years is coming to be viewed as cause and somehow I think that this will too. Time will tell. Clinton ran on and succeeded on the hot economy and he wants to get credit for it all. Well here is his Waterloo, I think.

Can you see him walking the streets of New York grabbing people by the lapels and saying I just missed the Enron thing by an hour. I think he needs to call another meeting in Harlem to decide how to try and spin this debacle. I hope he does, the more we see him, the less we love him.

regards

[Alberta's Child]

Here's another possible scenario that nobody has even considered. In fact, it just came and belted me in the side of the head while I was going through another thread:

If the Federal government goes ahead and overhauls the regulations governing company-sponsored retirement plans (as Bush has proposed) to the point that individual employees will have a substantial amount of protection against their own stupidity, then the primary concern about the privatization of Social Security will have vanished.

If this Enron debacle becomes the first step in a gradual eradication of the line that exists between private pension plans and Social Security, you heard it here first.

[JohnHuang2]

Re: #68 -- excellent point.

[Wyatt's Torch]

I think the main reason employees lost all of their 401k money is that they were stupid and had it all invested in company stock.

Bingo! Investing 101 - Diversification. The higher the concentration in one company, the higher the risk of losing it all. Now, if the investments are based on fraud....

[carton253]

I can only hope...

Right now, at work, I am surrounded by 25 employees who were rather surprised that they got a tax cut on this paycheck. They knew nothing about the debate, nothing about where Gore or Bush stood on taxes, or that they were even going to get a tax cut...

Twenty-five people and not one of them engaged in their own government enough to find out what their government is up to.

[Alberta's Child]

Diversification is certainly the key.

I own a little bit of Enron stock, along with the stock of 499 other firms in an index fund. When one of them goes belly-up, the entire fund doesn't pay much attention.

[section9]

JohnHuang2 wrote a wonderful analysis and a great response to this poster:

It worked on Poppy and they are praying for a repeat of their success in toppling a popular president.

Not to sound Pollyannish, but what 'worked' with 41 was the perception of a slumping economy, a president who broke a major campaign pledge, and a demoralized base.

Quite right, of course, John. Bush 41 killed himself for two reasons:

1. He demoralized his base in the Republican Party by going back on his promise to maintain low taxes. In so doing, he let loose his moorings with the intellectual reason for being of the Party. Few recall that George Mitchell would then accuse Bush I of raising taxes on the American people during the 1992 campaign.

2. He ignored the rising tide of unemployment in 1991. Had he been proactive and done everything he could to help lower the national unemployment rate, the American people might have thought kinder of him. But they perceived him to be an elitist, out-of-touch President in a time of high unemployment. That the economy was recovering in 1992 was irrelevant. The President set himself up for a relentless assault by the Democratic Party's spin machine.

While the economy may be limping along, the public has the sense to recognize the attacks of September 11 played a major role in jettison the economy. Polls show the public blames 9-11, not the President, for the recession.

Add to this fact a new reality. The economy is beginning to recover. I can see this where I work. Our company is posting record profits and is already working on instituting a profit-sharing plan for employees this year. If the economy was in such a tailspin right now, that plan would have been postponed.

Recall how the Dems spent years trying to pin scandal on the Gipper? Didn't have much success, did they? The press, flustered and bewildered, nick named him the 'teflon President'.

And they won't succeed, despite the fondest wishes of the likes of Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton and their outriders in the liberal media. Bush has achieved a remarkable bond with the American people, and it would take personal criminality or influence peddling on Bush's part to break that bond.

I believe we seeing history repeat itself right before our very eyes.

Yes, we are.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[veronica]

My intrepid prediction: The "hearings" will sputter.

Exactly right.

[JohnHuang2]

Thanks, amigo. Excellent analysis on your part, btw.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

AA & Enron are both responsible. Enron knew its situation in the fall and AA also knew Enron's situation. Both are responsible for not disclosing accurately it appears; although the full jury is still out and perhaps giant Enron's downward momentum was steeply accelerated by 9/11 and the financial information made public simply could not keep pace with the unprecedented collapse. At the first sign of real wrongdoing on the part of Enron, AA was ethically obliged to resign from the audit engagement if they had a problem with whatever Enron management was doing or wanted the company's financial statement to reflect. If there is also deliberate book cooking, then AA is still complicit. But it certainly wouldn't be the first time for any of the big public accounting firms, would it? It is a sad situation. The fact that the company fell is not surprising in the current post-9/11 climate. But it's a sad situation because of the workers' lost retirement funds. It's funny because dems don't like business bailouts but, especially in this case, a bailout would have helped the folks the dems claim to care the most about. Dems always forget that it is BUSINESS that employs folks in the first place.

[RayBob]

I think they were in the Phar-Mor mess too.

[arete]

This just isn't adding up in terms of the "they don't want to go there" arguement.

I agree. RATS have the media on their side. Heard on CNN about a thousand times that Enron had/has ties to the Bush administration. All they have to do is report on half the story to get the smear of Bush to stick. Let's face it, most rank and file RAT voters will believe anything they are told to believe by their handlers. Tell them that GW starves his dogs and beats his kids and they will believe it. Enron is a problem not because there is really anything there, but like "he's spending my Social Security money" it is an issue that the sheep will believe regardless.

Richard W.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Andersen is in a world of hurt. Their auditors readily admitted that the corporate structure schemes were so complex that they couldn't even understand them. Analysts that have been reading the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements have been so thuroughly confused that they admitted that they didn't understand what they said. With Andersen signing off on those, they are going to be in trouble. Now with the documents shredding, they might go down with the Enron ship. hope the $52Million in fees was worth it to the partners.

[Wyatt's Torch]

RATS have the media on their side. Heard on CNN about a thousand times that Enron had/has ties to the Bush administration.

Here's thing thing - the details of Enron's financial unravelling are so comlex that even many financial professionals can't understand them. One of two things will happen - 1) The sheeple will hear only that W has ties to Enron and Enron screwed many people and staved kids, etc... or 2) It will be so complex and confusing that the sheeple will totally lose interest. My bet is on #2. If you thought Whitewater was complicated, try to comprehend the Enron deal.