[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