Posted on 01/10/2002 1:30:35 PM PST by Liz
WASHINGTON - "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." SNIP---
Enron had the best brains that money could buy, but gave the word "ethics" a whole new meaning. The cowboys of Dumpty Enron talked up a storm about ethics; but only a few at the top realized that "ethics" was an acronym for "Enron thinks how income can (be) stolen."
That's a stretch; but look at their 1994 sales team - Clinton, Gore and the late Ron Brown - a trio unlimited and uncontrolled in their cunning and greed.
In what seems to be eons ago, before Gov. Bill Clinton became president, the late, much loved and little lamented Ron Brown was Clinton's good friend and a power broker in the National Democratic Party. Ron Brown had a friend, a congressman from Houston, the late Mickey Leland, who died in 1989. Until his passing, Leland was a shining light in the Congressional Black Caucus and a dedicated socialist, who was one of the Institute for Policy Studies' delights.
From 1984, when Enron was conceived, Brown and Leland were there snapping up unconsidered trifles of money for use in their campaigns against the free market. Mickey was able to ease a lot of Enron's early problems through the Houston City Council by playing his "equal opportunity card." He had also become an African expert who initially took the Enron message to that continent, a chore that was taken on by Ron Brown, Clinton's secretary of commerce, before the latter met his untimely death in a highly controversial plane crash in Croatia. (Untimely, because had Secretary Brown lived, he would have faced multiple criminal indictments that could have precipitated an even earlier fall for Bill Clinton and his gang.)
Now we get to that old puzzle about chickens and eggs, and what came first! Ron Brown, Al Gore and Bill Clinton introduced Enron to market managers in Russia, China, Indonesia and India. In India, Enron quickly became involved in one of that country's most massive corruption investigations, contracts were canceled and Enron was out.
On the other hand, Enron introduced the Clinton team to Lippo Industries and thence to China's People's Liberation Army (a wonderful source of political cash), to John Huang, another good provider and to nameless, numberless Arabs who never arrived with empty pockets. If we look at a list of those attending coffee klatches at the White House, we can learn why a storm of doubtful deals enabled Enron to quickly control one-quarter of the world's electricity and natural gas. But, that wasn't enough. The ever-so-greedy Dumpty moved in to water deals in Massachusetts and Europe, paper mills in Canada, gas pipe lines throughout the world, fiber optics, television, mutual funds and information gathering. In turn, that led to risk analysis, a name that those clever Texans quickly changed to "reward realization!"
The rewards were good! Enron, with sales assistance from Tony Lake, then Clinton's national security adviser, persuaded the impoverished, war-torn country of Mozambique to sign a $770 million electric power contract. Mozambique signed because Tony's salesmanship was persuasive. If the Mozambicans didn't sign, he indicated that their congressionally approved $44 million U.S. aid payment would never be made.
And there was the Croatian caper. In the days when Franjo Tudjman was Croatia's dictator and pretending to be both a reformed communist and best friend of America in the Balkans, poor Franjo had a problem. He and some of his very best friends were wanted as war criminals by the Hague's International Court of Justice. Enron wanted a power contract with Croatia. Enron offered a deal to Tudjman. Sign up with us and we will use our gang in Washington to make sure you and your friends don't go to jail.
Tudjman signed. Enron made a heap of money. Nobody went to jail. Everyone was happy - until Tudjman died of cancer. Then the lid was off, his Croatian Democratic Union was defeated and the new boys in power in Zagreb could not believe how much of their budget went to pay the electricity bills from Enron.
Somebody - probably another Dr. Spock child eager to tell on his peers - prattled! Under quiet pressure from the Croats, another deal was made and a couple of guys were charged as war criminals. Electricity costs went down (but not to the consumers) and as a part of the deal nobody talked, except about the wonderful vacations that they were enjoying in the Caribbean.
This could be called a "cautionary tale." There are two cautions. The first: Beware of the Spock babies now that they are nearing retirement and losing whatever sense they had. The second: Investigators all, beware, as you look into the depths and shallows of Enron you may, if you are truly unlucky, find the truth. And, if you do, these truths won't make you free, just well informed.
"Dateline D.C." is written by a Washington, D.C.-based British journalist and political observer.
What about Tricky Dick Gebhardt and McAuliffe?
Nail 'em
Even Pandora would have flinched at this box-opening...........
God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.
'Pod
You assume they have a library, newspapers and a dictionary in Murrysville, PA. A rather large assumption.
You seem to perceive politics as one-dimensional. It's not. There are many layers - like an onion.
Even if the Bushies weren't gonna play their game, it would have been helpful to Enron to say they
had ponied up the big bucks.
Sounds like Arkansas.
Liz - you are a gem!
Just in case the rest of you have not seen this post - please let others know about it. The Rats are gnawing at President Bush because they MUST MUST MUST find a way to bring him down! They have had ENOUGH of all this patriotism. This is Hillary's handiwork and it is going to backfire so loudly the Dems will be ready to kick her to kingdom come!
(blush) gee, thanks.
I am going to post this til kingdom come. So keep watching.
Gosh I wish someone would pull the cheese out of the pipeline so this site would run faster. Seems to be slower a lot of the time after the move to the new server.
Ver-r-r-y inter-r-r-esting.
LAY: I think clearly one area that were going to see more emphasis on with the Clinton and Gore team will be in this whole area of global warming and carbon dioxide emissions. Theres going to be a stronger push for limits and even reductions on carbon dioxide emissions in this new Administration. From the standpoint of my industry, I think the natural gas industry has a very positive role to play in that, and I expect were going to see a fairly aggressive stance taken on that by the new Administration.
CURWOOD: Let me turn to you, Tony Ruckle -- what are your highest hopes for the environment in a Clinton Administration?
RUCKLE: Well, one of them, obviously, is that progressive businessmen like Ken Lay also have a voice in what happens in the new Administration. We have an agenda, of course, and its in fact built up over twelve years, although obviously some of the things I will mention are of more recent focus, but next year we have reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act coming up. I expect this to be a very difficult, hard-fought battle. Preservation and protection of wilderness areas around the country have been stymied, almost non-existent over twelve years. We have California desert lands, correction of forestry practices, particularly in old-growth forests, protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I could go on, but I, let me let my colleague have something to say, or you ask another question.
LAY: Well, and Steve, before we leave this, Ill tell you one of my expectations, and that is that we will see a lot more activity on global warming gases. But I guess if I was to give you my hope, it is that we could continue at least some of what started the last few years of more cooperation, more working together between business and environmental groups. But secondly, that where possible we continue to rely primarily on market forces and on incentives and disincentives to achieve our environmental goals, versus returning to kind of the command-control procedure that we almost entirely relied on fifteen or twenty years ago.
CURWOOD: Thank you both. Tony Ruckle is president of the Sierra Club, he joined us from Denver; and Kenneth Lay is chief executive officer of Enron Corporation, in Houston. Thank you both for joining us.
http://www.loe.org/archives/921106.htm
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