Ken Lay has died (heart attack)

Reuters | 7/5/06

[ElRushbo]

cause of death unknown

[wideawake]

The majority of people work a job, put money away, and live their lives with the expectation that as they near or reach retirement age, their savings will be there.

If they honestly believe that they can put all their savings into a single stock and never have to worry about retirement, I'm surprised they ever learned how to tie their shoes or make toast.

If you put less thought into your personal retirement plan than you do into your favorite sports team, then you deserve everything you get.

[DCPatriot]

How do YOU know if Mr. Lay had lost his soul?

Barrabas found the opportunity to beg forgiveness.

[Fawn]

Wow...sounds fishy.

[Praxeus]

"Again, he didn't kill anyone"

Well, that is a non-sequiter.

Also, it does not diminish the scale and gravity of what he did.

A murderer steals a life. Ken Lay's actions stole the quality of thousands of lives (with no apparent remorse). The distinction doesn't improve Mr. Lay's standing.

[glymers]

hope it's not the same doctors that did Shaivo's Autopsy.

[Frapster]

Grace is a license to sin. He is being judged based upon one action and one action alone. I know not his choice in the matter. Do you?

[wideawake]

My job, my retirement package and my life savings cannot be wiped out by any one person's fraud because, while I may be stupid, I am not stupid enough to put all my eggs in one basket.

Anyone who worked at Enron and had all their savings invested in Enron stock was being reckless and irresponsible with their own future.

No one held a gun to their heads.

[Maximus of Texas]

"How do YOU know if Mr. Lay had lost his soul?"

Because when they were closing the Enron offices they found it in the Lost and Found box.

[wideawake]

If a person is unintelligent enough to put their entire life savings into shares of a single growth stock, his quality of life was significantly impaired before he ever crossed paths with Ken Lay.

Ken Lay did not have mystical powers.

[Maximus of Texas]

You must work for a company were 100% of the employees have been trained in how to handle their personal finances. That's nice, unfortunately, 99.99999% of companies don't have such knowledgeable employees.

[Jaded]

If one looks further than wiki, you'll see another side to that story. Ken Lay spent the time he should have been minding the store, Skilling and Fastow smoozing politicos. It goes much further back than Bush.

[Hydroshock]

No I do not, I just offered a prayer for his soul and a warning that we will all eventually face judgement.

[Frapster]

lol!

[Frapster]

fair enough

[WOSG]

Thanks for your reasoned response.

Ken Lay is a man who both built up a company and then saw it fall apart, due to actions that not just he but others took to hide the losses that Enron incurred in an 'internet bubble' trading business. It was wrong and illegal, but it didnt define all of who he was, and apparently he paid a high price for his errors - he lost his fortune, his honor, and now his life.

May Ken Lay rest in peace.

[NotADove]

Yeah, I've got a Liberal father-in-law who seems to get flustered when one brings up all who were spared by Caligula and all who died in Arkancide.

[lucysmom]

Now, as their job is gone, their house is taken, their marriage is on the rocks, and their kids start thinking of them as a burden and not a joy, you tell them to suck it up and put on the happy blue greeter's apron.

I know someone that happened to. He now has a minimum wage job and sleeps on his employers warehouse floor. Not the way he planned his golden years.

[ladyjane]

It is so sad. When I was taking my first 'real' job in my early 20's the people in human resources gave us a big lecture on diversifying our retirement funds. We had 40 to 50 more years to work and they were adamant that we put some of our funds in bonds. I guess times changed.

[Praxeus]

This has nothing to do with the intelligence or non-intelligence of the victims of Mr. Lay's crimes.

It is about immorality and criminality on a very large scale.

The so called "stupidity" of the disenfranchised has no bearing on the guilt and resulting reviling of the perpetrator of the disenfranchisement.

Mr. Lay was a mass criminal, and history will show it.. and should.

[wideawake]

Anyone who has ever thought to himself: "Hey, now that I have a little money in the bank, I should look into how investing works" and decided to read a how-to on investing or to ask his bank for the free financial advice that every bank offers, will invariably learn that diversification is important.

Moreover, diversification is just common sense.

The fact that most people seem to do more research on their next automobile purchase than they do on how they are going to eat after they retire amazes me, but that slackness really wasn't Ken Lay's doing.