>X-Sender: dscanlan at pop3.oro.net
>Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:40:21 -0800
>To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
>From: Dan Scanlan <dscanlan at oro.net>
>Subject: [PEN-L:35020] Enron recap
>Reply-To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Sender: owner-pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
>
>This was posted by a California Nader group.
>("Nader 2000 | California" <nader-cal-news-owner at greens.org>)
>
>Enron: Under Cover of Dark and the War
>
> By Matt Bivens
>WASHINGTON (Moscow Times [Russia], Feb. 17) -- The Enron scandal has all
>but disappeared from view. Let's check in on it, shall we?
>
> You remember Enron: It claimed to be making and holding onto lots more
> money than it really was; it suckered people, including its own
> employees, into believing it was a success; its top executives paid
> themselves lavishly and then, when the pyramid shuddered, cashed out early.
>
> That's the usual chronology, but the 800-pound gorilla it omits is the
> summer of 2001 in California, when "energy traders" like Enron created a
> phony "energy crisis" in which, for the third summer in a row, they could
> ransom their energy for eye-poppingly outrageous sums.
>
> There's not much doubt left today that the California energy crisis was
> an Enron-esque game. Just 10 days ago, a fifth former Enron exec entered
> a federal guilty plea. He admits he and his colleagues intentionally
> defrauded Californians intentionally brought about those lucrative power
> outages.
>
> Enron, of course, wasn't alone. Traders over at Reliant Energy (just
> renamed Center point) have been caught on tape laughing about being the
> cause of power failures across the West Coast, and then under cover of
> dark sneaking away with the public's hard-earned money it was "cool" and "fun."
>
> So, game over, right? There's a consensus that 55 million Californians
> were ripped off by the Fraudster 500; now it's just a matter of doling
> out the jail time and the public shame, collecting what money can be
> recovered, and ordering regulators to prevent it recurring, right?
>
> Uh, no. For starters, Americans have forgotten Enron. We're too busy
> duct-taping our windows shut against the possibility of a chemical,
> biological or nuclear attack. The press derides the new government civil
> defence advice as "duct and cover", a joking reference to the old
> "duck-and-cover" Cold War drills, in which school kids would hide under
> their desks from Comrade Stalin, but that hasn't stopped hoarders from
> buying up all the flashlights and bottled water in my hometown.
>
> With no one watching, it's back to business as usual and the Bush
> administration is eager to do the bidding of the oligarchy -- sorry,
> wrong country -- of its favourite "campaign contributors." So those
> Reliant traders who thought themselves so "cool" earned their company a
> playful wrist slap: Their $13.8 million fine equals .03 percent of
> Reliant's (rape-of-California) 2001 revenues of $40.8 billion. If Reliant
> had [car]jacked a Mercedes, this would be equivalent to a judge ordering
> it to keep the car but return any change found behind the seat.
>
> The fine was set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC,
> and for anyone who missed the point, the White House just appointed a new
> FERC commissioner: Joseph Kelliher, a former aide to Vice President Dick
> Cheney. Kelliher was the Enron "go-to" guy -- he was once handed Enron's
> "dream list" of government policies and dutifully relayed it to Boss Cheney.
>
> Meanwhile, the man who used to run Enron's corrupt energy trading
> division is not only not in trouble, he's secretary of the U.S. Army
> that, incredibly, makes him the man in charge of the Army budget. Ken
> Lay, the former Enron chief, is also doing well. He's having a day in
> court soon because he's suing the U.S. government. He and his wife think
> the U.S. tax authorities owe them $130,000 from the mid-1980s.
>
> So this is why they say the first casualty of war is truth.
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------
>Drop Bush, Not Bombs!
>-------------------------------------------------------
>
>"During times of universal deceit,
>telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
>George Orwell
>
>------------------------------------
>
>END OF THE TRAIL SALOON
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