TERRIFYING DIAGRAMS!
posted by Pretty_Generic on Sep 26, 2004 - 37 comments

Before Enron Houston, Texas had been the locus of a stock scandal of a slightly different sort. Growing up in Houston in the 80s and 90s, I never associated the word "Sharpstown" with anything but a mall, but the area underwent a development mired in scandal.

In the late 1960s Frank W. Sharp, a Houston businessman, negotiated a deal with a few Texas House Democrats; they would help pass a piece of legislation, and in turn, he would ensure that they would make a profit from his company's stock. In 1971, the dealings came to light. Most of the public officials connected with the scandal were run out of office, but somehow one man beat the resulting karma, even it was a a few decades later. But some good did come out of this, as the Texas Open Records Act was expanded in the aftermath of the scandal.
posted by lychee on May 15, 2004 - 3 comments

Gore Vidal releases new book about the founding fathers, has some words for the current administration. Vidal: But mostly we find the sort of corruption Franklin predicted. Ours is a totally corrupt society. The presidency is for sale. Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president. This is corruption on a major scale. Enron was an eye-opener to naive lovers of modern capitalism. Our accounting brotherhood, in its entirety, turned out to be corrupt, on the take. With the government absolutely colluding with them and not giving a damn. Bush’s friend, old Kenny Lay, is still at large and could just as well start some new company tomorrow. If he hasn’t already. No one is punished for squandering the people’s money and their pension funds and for wrecking the economy. So the corruption predicted by Franklin bears its terrible fruit. No one wants to do anything about it. It’s not even a campaign issue. Once you have a business community that is so corrupt in a society whose business is business, then what you have is, indeed, despotism. It is the sort of authoritarian rule that the Bush people have given us.
posted by skallas on Nov 15, 2003 - 61 comments

No perp walk for Enron and Halliburton? Asked to explain why no arrests had been made for these two companies, Larry D. Thompson said, "Some cases are more complex than others." Does it matter what the penalties are for corporate crime? Seems all you need are the right political connections and an adequately complex scheme to defraud investors and employees. Is the White House protecting corporations with their interpretation of whistle blowers? Aren't preventive measures more appropriate than punishments for these crimes? Does wealth truly create a double standard for prosecution under our legal system?
posted by nofundy on Aug 2, 2002 - 33 comments

Clinton Fires Back at Republican Accusations "There was corporate malfeasance both before he took office and after. The difference is I actually tried to do something about it and their party stopped it. And one of the people who stopped our attempt to stop Enron accounting was made chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission." He also talks about the Middle East and the related "Blame Clinton" movement. I can hear the teeth gnashing already.
posted by owillis on Jul 28, 2002 - 60 comments

Enron's historical precidents. This L.A. Times article discusses the historical precidents to the Enron debacle. My favorite (among lots of good stuff):

"Like Enron, ITT was a big campaign contributor. But Geneen's idea of how to use political influence made Lay and associates look like choir boys. In 1970, the company offered Republicans $1 million and consulted heavily with the Nixon White House and the CIA when Chile's new socialist president, Salvador Allende, threatened to seize the ITT-owned Chilean Telephone Co. Allende was overthrown with U.S. aid."
posted by electro on Feb 22, 2002 - 9 comments

Chney refusal to turn over records may soon end up in court Th eEnron scandal begins to mirror the Clinton Whitewater affair, with an apparent suicide, the use of executive priviledge, congressional groups investigating. Now all that is needed is some sex and an independent prosecurtor.
posted by Postroad on Jan 28, 2002 - 14 comments

Link from NYTimes front page: as though any party or politician is "Taint" free. Sort of like saying every MF post is thotful, entelligent, and well spelt. [this post notwithstanding]
posted by greyscale on Jan 26, 2002 - 5 comments

The most sensible take I've seen on Enron and Bush. Once all the fuss has died down—Congress is currently planning ten separate inquiries—two good things will probably have come out of the Enron mess. Companies will no longer be allowed to use their pension programs to treat their employees as an especially loyal and malleable class of shareholder; instead, pension funds will have to be diversified. And accounting firms will no longer be allowed to act as paid consultants to the companies they audit, as Arthur Andersen did with Enron. New Yorker link, no registration required.
posted by jfuller on Jan 23, 2002 - 9 comments

"It just hit me... they won't be contributing any more money, will they?" Abruptly changing his tone about a company that heavily contributed to his political campaigns, President George W. Bush now says that he was "outraged" that Enron Corp. misled its employees and investors, including his mother-in-law, who he said lost more than $8,000 when the energy firm's stock collapsed.
posted by o2b on Jan 23, 2002 - 20 comments

A week before filing for bankruptcy protection, energy giant Enron Corp. donated $100,000 to the Democratic Party committee that helps Senate candidates, campaign finance reports show. Enron has been talked about before, so do people think this is an important sum of money, if not why is CNN covering it?
posted by rhyax on Dec 28, 2001 - 13 comments