[A-List] Enron Is Symbolic of Bush Blunders

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Enron Is Symbolic of Bush Blunders
By Robert Scheer | Los Angeles Times.
December 27, 2001

IF YOU FOLLOW George W. Bush's thinking on how to fix our broken
economy, you would throw a few hundred million in tax breaks to his
buddies who bankrupted Enron.  Not simply because they bankrolled his
ascension to the Texas governorship and the White House but, more
important, because they are modern alchemists who make money out of
nothing.

Nothing is what Enron is to its once-loyal employees, who lost those
private savings accounts that Bush is always touting; some of them will
now have to live on Social Security, which the president seems hellbent
on bankrupting.

Nothing is what Enron is to its many small stockholders, including
California's public workers, whose state pension fund was heavily
invested in the now-bankrupt company.  Nothing is what Enron is to
consumers in California and half a dozen other states forced  to seek
expensive long-term electricity contracts because of Enron's shenanigans
in the energy market.

Nothing is what Enron is to the people of India and other countries,
still eating the ashes of spectacular Enron promises.

But Enron's millions found their way into the bank account of company
chairman Kenneth L. Lay - close family friend and financier of the
political careers of Bushes,  junior and senior.

Equally fortunate was Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former CEO who
masterminded Enron's meteoric rise and who resigned in August, cashing
out tens of millions before the company's crash.

Bush's secretary of the Army, Thomas White Jr., is another former top
Enron executive who also managed to sell his $50-million to $100-million
stake well before shares dropped from $90 to 29 cents. Karl Rove, top
White House political adviser, had a smaller $250,000 stake that, as far
as I can determine, reporters have not asked him about. Neither have
they asked Bush's economic adviser, Lawrence B. Lindsey, or Trade
Representative Robert B. Zoellick, both of whom went directly from Enron
to the White House, if they are now in the ranks of the suddenly poor.

The most important question for America's economic future should be
directed to the president himself: Does he still believe in the miracle
of Enron? Why, after Enron's collapse, does Bush still insist on a
stimulus package that rewards high-flying executives while resisting
extending unemployment insurance and medical coverage to workers thrown
out of their jobs because of the mismanagement and other acts of
economic stupidity by companies such as Enron?

"Stupidity" is used charitably. Motives that appear more mendacious will
be explored, we hope, by congressional committees planning to get to the
bottom of the smelly Enron mess during February hearings.

Can it be a mere intelligence deficit that led Enron's ex-CEO to claim
to The New York Times that he didn't know how the company came to
overvalue its assets to the tune of $600 million, that he didn't know of
the highly suspect investment partnerships conducted by his chief
financial officer - his most trusted aide - and that he is without a
clue as to the reasons behind Enron's collapse?

"We're all trying to figure out what happened," Skilling said. That
eerily dumb, if not totally disingenuous, statement haunts at a time
when we're trying to figure out what happened to a U.S. economy that has
fallen into recession on Bush's watch.

Enron was Bush's model for economic progress, and Enron's Lay was the
one individual consulted most closely in private meetings with Vice
President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials during
development of their environment-busting plan to"solve" our energy
problems.

Bush's Enron advisers were the chief zealots in his kitchen cabinet
pushing for unregulated markets combined with tax breaks for rich
companies. Enron won handsomely on both counts.

The idea that what's good for the super-rich is good for the economy
remains Bush's economic mantra. It's a bankrupt philosophy, as witness
the Enron debacle.

For an even more ominous example, look no further than the current total
collapse of the dramatically deregulated economy of Argentina. Food
riots in a once prosperous society are not a pretty sight.