Molly Ivins, excerpt from latest column

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Jul 20 20:55:33 PDT 2002


[Titled "Take Your 'We' and Shove It"] [last two paragaphs]

[Full column along with column archive at sacbee.com]

A few days after the 1992 election, Enron and several other companies

began petitioning the Commodities Futures Trading Commission for an

exemption from regulatory oversight on energy derivatives contracts. A

few weeks later, lame-duck chairman Wendy Gramm and one other

commissioner (the commission was short two of its five members)

exempted the energy companies from CFTC's authority. And Bryce* reports

in his book that the companies were exempted even if the contracts

they sold were designed to defraud or mislead buyers! The

then-chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the CFTC,

Rep. Glen English, said, "In 18 years in Congress, this is the most

irresponsible decision I have come across." Give that man the

Cassandra Award.

That's nuts and needs to be fixed. But it is also an indication of how

deeply political this scandal is. All the pols pointing fingers at the

CEO-nistas should turn those fingers right around at themselves.

Twenty-two years of pretty much uninterrupted administrations putting

foxes in charge of various governmental henhouses, and this is what

you get. Worse, Congress itself is so deeply corrupted by campaign

contributions (legalized bribery) it has constantly acted against the

public interest, in favor of the corporate interests.

*Robert Bryce, _Pipedreams_, due out in October



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