January 13, 2002

9:20 AM

"Enrongate" in a nutshell.Our own Oliver Willis has compiled a very thorough catalogue of clips from the Enron scandal, dating all the way back to April 2000. If you haven't been following all along, it's a great resource to catch up.
posted by jpoulos (34 comments total)

Neato.
posted by dong_resin at 9:38 AM on January 13, 2002

It's a bit disengenuous to magically start this story in 2000.

You could easily argue that Enron started with bribes to Clinton's DNC back in 1995.
posted by Real9 at 9:43 AM on January 13, 2002

You can always count on someone with the lack of originality to put '-gate' at the end of something to show it's a conspiracy.
posted by troybob at 9:44 AM on January 13, 2002

You can always count on idiots lacking researching abilities to make snarky comments. ^
posted by tamim at 9:55 AM on January 13, 2002

From TIME article on memo to destroy records.
"Anyone [at Andersen] who destroyed records out of stupidity should be fired,"
That's a hoot! One of the world's biggest consulting firms has people acting "out of stupidity"? Arizona oceanfront for sale...cheap!

The sad thing is that in spite of all the hyped calls for heads to roll, more than likely the worst that will occur will be for a couple of fall guys to spend a few years perfecting their golf swing at some country club detention facility and yielding some of their ill-gotten assets, ala poor (NOT!) Mr. Milken.

Let's hope corporate terrorism gets added to the list of targets in our new 'war'. (Yes, I'm naive).
posted by HTuttle at 10:28 AM on January 13, 2002

I've been relying on Oliver to tell me what I need to know about Enron for a while now. It seems that in the last week, his task has suddenly gotten a lot bigger.
posted by emptyage at 10:41 AM on January 13, 2002

I've been looking for something like this. Good stuff, Oliver.
posted by Doug at 10:53 AM on January 13, 2002

The Time article linked above has more detail on Andersen's document destruction than anything else I have seen so far. Looks *really* bad.
posted by Mid at 11:04 AM on January 13, 2002

Impressionante!

(I was saving my first Portuguese word on MeFi for something really good and this was it)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:42 AM on January 13, 2002

I thought that was "pachacha". ;)
posted by rodii at 12:29 PM on January 13, 2002

Well, a pachacha impressionante is indeed something to behold.[cue pathetic voice, struggling to justify massive derailment] And yes, some of those guys over at, um, Enron certainly were that!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:36 PM on January 13, 2002

Goodness, I didn't even get to clean up. I wasn't expecting company...
posted by owillis at 12:42 PM on January 13, 2002

Check out owillis' Enrongate page. I did two days ago, when it was posted at MetaFilter. It is an excellent reference page. What did the president — and vice president — know, and when did they know it? Good (usual) question, and I have no doubt we will find out, but so far i havn't seen an accusation of Bushbaddness in the Enronian sense, just suspicions. Independant Prosecutor, anybody?
posted by Mack Twain at 12:43 PM on January 13, 2002

Thanks for the link jpoulos and thanks for the legwork Owillis.
posted by Modem Ovary at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2002

I missed the previous post but have read owillis's chronology, too--For the record, add my applause as well.
posted by y2karl at 1:41 PM on January 13, 2002

Owillis for President! Good job, O.
posted by Rastafari at 1:51 PM on January 13, 2002

No kidding; even though I'd known owillis from here for like, ages, it wasn't until a few days I checked out his site. It kinda rocks, doesn't it?

Mack Twain: So far i havn't seen an accusation of Bushbaddness in the Enronian sense, just suspicions. Independant Prosecutor, anybody?

Hey, don't lose hope- after all, it took Ken Starr years before he finally got something with the whole bj "scandal". Enron looks to have a lot more meat on its bones than Whitewater, so we probably won't have to wait that long!
posted by hincandenza at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2002

Man, it’s funny to watch Republicans get as defensive as Democrats were a few years ago.
posted by raaka at 2:56 PM on January 13, 2002

Which will only make the GOP start digging up dirt more zealously on any future Dem candidates, and vice versa. Hellooooooo vicious -gate cycle! It'd be nice to think that this would eventually end with politicians who don't dare get their hands dirty, but even I'm not that idealistic.
posted by darukaru at 3:58 PM on January 13, 2002

No matter what, it's all Clinton's fault!
posted by mrhappy at 4:51 PM on January 13, 2002

And in the midst of all this, Clinton's dog gets killed by accident...

Coincedence?
posted by BentPenguin at 5:15 PM on January 13, 2002

It's certainly an impressive collection of links, but can somebody please explain to me what the Bush administration did wrong? Or, at least how this will harm them politically? Sorry if I'm being dense.
posted by electro at 6:07 PM on January 13, 2002

electro: there's no proof that the Bush admin. did anything wrong (yet), what we have now is a spectacular business failure in which the principal player was a major contributor to and friend of The President.

darukaru: while that's certainly true/possible, it seems Democrats get in trouble with their pants down (Clinton, Jesse Jackson) versus Republicans who get in trouble with big business and secret wars. In the past, sex was a killer (Gary Hart) but post-Clinton I don't think the majority of people put as much of a penalty on that versus bailout-type stuff (which Bush is very clearly attempting to absolve himself of)
posted by owillis at 7:13 PM on January 13, 2002

owillis, it's an impressive collection of links, but may i suggest that you preface the collection with your motive for this undertaking. some readers might ascribe an erroneous motive.
posted by DBAPaul at 7:22 PM on January 13, 2002

electro...there are a few indications so far that Bush might be harmed politically by this:

(1) the revelation that several members of the administration were contacted by Enron for assistance before any else knew there was a problem; if the administration knew they were heading for bankruptcy before, say, the employees who lost their life savings/401(k), the fact that the administration kept quiet about it would certainly be of concern.

(2) cheney's insistence on keeping Enron's input into the energy task force a secret; the administration might have taken steps to help Enron and the energy industry that actually made it easier for the top guys at Enron to bail out and screw over the employees and investors.

(3) the revelation that (as indicated on owillis's great page...despite my earlier rash comment on the -gate thing) , "in early 1993...Bush appointees on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted to exempt energy traders from its anti-fraud regulations"

(4) the fact that, during the California energy crisis in early 2001, (which is starting to look like it was actually a crisis manufactured by Enron), the Bush administration, in an attempt to deflect criticism of Enron, was touting Enron as such a shining example of a succesful corporation in the energy industry.

(5) the fact that the overzealous investigation of Whitewater yielded far fewer links to the Clintons than have already been revealed between Enron and the Bush administration, and the outcome of this is far more serious.

These are a few things that occur to me, based on what I have read so far. I think a primary issue is that, given that Lay's financial support bought him a great deal of influence in the Bush administration, it would be naive to think that Bush found out about this when the rest of us (or those who lost so much money) did.
posted by troybob at 8:53 PM on January 13, 2002

Real9: "It's a bit disengenuous to magically start this story in 2000.

You could easily argue that Enron started with bribes to Clinton's DNC back in 1995."

Sounds good to me - why don't you do the same thing as Oliver, but start it in the 1995 time frame and go forward to the present, and *then* you can criticize the tremendous amount of work that Mr. Willis has done.


DBAPaul: "posted by owillis at 7:13 PM PST on January 13

owillis, it's an impressive collection of links, but may i suggest that you preface the collection with your motive for this undertaking. some readers might ascribe an erroneous motive."

Let me suggest one for you: FYI.


C'mon, people - acknowledge his labor. Don't look for a way to take away from that.

Excellent job, owillis. Please continue as the saga unfolds.
posted by Fenderhead at 11:35 PM on January 13, 2002

I agree with DBAPaul. Oliver, you should just admit that you're a member of the communist party, and your intention in making this page was to help the terrorists win.
posted by Doug at 1:32 AM on January 14, 2002

Glasnost was just capitalistic propaganda.
One word: rubles.
posted by owillis at 2:29 AM on January 14, 2002

Safire had a surprisingly luke warm opinion piece in the Times today.

Maybe the 'tone' of politics is changing.
posted by revbrian at 7:24 AM on January 14, 2002

Maybe the 'tone' of politics is changing.

As in it's now safe to make fun of the President again without being labled anti-American?
posted by Modem Ovary at 8:24 AM on January 14, 2002

I'll bet CK did all the data collecting, and here is Oliver taking all the credit. Man's best friend...feh!
posted by adampsyche at 8:43 AM on January 14, 2002

the fact that the administration kept quiet about it would certainly be of concern

Dunno about that -- had they said something, they might have precipitated the same events (massive stock failures, etc). There are SEC rules about such things, and it could have been illegal for them to comment.

I don't know, but I'm not certain that the Bush administration, had they known anything, should have done more than say "hey, Enron -- this is your mess. You deal with it."
posted by dwivian at 10:07 AM on January 14, 2002

Say what?! I found this on cryptome.org - a list of 209 Enron bankruptcies since 1990, not even including "multiple subsidiaries, special purpose entities and third-party arrangements." Can somebody tell me what this means, and how people could have kept their nest eggs in a company with a record like this? Please tell me this is not standard operating procedure for big corporations.
posted by ferris at 10:46 AM on January 14, 2002

CK has connections within the Bush administration. Need to know basis only.
posted by owillis at 1:56 AM on January 15, 2002