Re: [A-List] Enron Is Symbolic of Bush Blunders

["Anne Williamson" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

These are very sober, very pertinent questions.  I appreciate Scheer's
asking
them very much.

The part that drives me nearly mad is that this kind of insider
fast-stepping
between the political and financial elite began in the 2nd Reagan
administration.
I know, I know - a lot earlier than that, but these are the years it became
increasing obvious. People who had connections to that administration
through
the Fed have told me that that is when you first saw bright young things at
the Defense
Dept carefully allotting 2 or 3 years to govt service, and then scheduling
in a lifetime's
worth of milking the contacts established.  That seems almost quaint now,
the whole
corruption process is at hyper-speed; they are all in the same, nasty
thicket.

Clinton had dealings with Enron notables, and was their beneficiary too.

I wish Scheer had been more attentive to the govt's black heart back then.

It's all of a piece, I'm afraid.  And so are each of them, Republican or
Democrat,
they are the same people.

But the ramifications of the Enron fiasco for their employees will be so
gruesome,
and - I suspect - so devastating to their creditors and counter-parties that
this
scandal is one that won't be finessed so easily.  No boom to cover it up,
maybe
a stumble in the grande expansion, maybe more terrorism that can't be
stonewalled
like the flight to the Dominican Republic that made it as far as Queens on
account of
it's appendages - tail, wings - falling free within 10 seconds of take-off.

I think we're in for just an awful, awful time of it.

Anne

----- Original Message -----
From: Henry C.K. Liu <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <gang8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
<TheNewForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 9:07 PM
Subject: [A-List] Enron Is Symbolic of Bush Blunders


> 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.
>
>
>
>