> I understand the Enron story, but I haven't quite grasped the scandal
> implications. What do we suspect, in a best-case scenario, the Bush people
> might have done wrong concerning Enron? Other than just being chummy with
> Lay and his slimeball friends?
Exactly. After all, in the end Enron went bankrupt and ceased operations!
Perhaps Enron used all its influence last year when spikes in spot energy prices led to rolling blackouts in the seventh largest economy in the world, California. The Bush administration sat on its hands risking and losing lots of credibility, maybe on Enron's advice, while the gas suppliers proceeded to destroy their large publicly regulated customers. If there is any political story it is there.
41 and 43 are probably the *most* angry at Enron, and with Ken Lay. Maybe they're saying, "We stood by you when you were bankrupting your customers and you told us it was OK. You blew up up Ken, and you're broke. We've got an election to win, so maybe we'll see you at River Oaks in 2005."
The scandal would have been if Greenspan and O'Neill had put the full faith and credit of USGOV behind Enron's contracts, until they could be sold at a market clearing price, as seems to have been the case with LTCM in 1998. The terms of the LTCM price keeping operation were never disclosed or put to a vote.
As it is, as far as I know, Enron's delivery contracts are bust, insurers of those contracts are paying out or going bankrupt, and the lenders on those contracts are writing off the value of their loans.
If this is how the GOP treats its friends, what does it do to its adversaries?
Disclosure: I was so certain that Enron would get the same preferential treatment that WalMart, Tyson, and Stevens got from the Clinton administrations that I bought the stock at the end of 2000. Ha!
Chris