Rob Morse on Enron and Pretzeldent Bush :
sfgate.com
Enron code of ethics may be worth
a bundle
Rob Morse
Friday, January 18, 2002
Even before Enron melted down, the company's
logo was called, appropriately enough, "The
Crooked E." You can find that logo all over items
offered for sale by laid-off Enron employees on
EBay.
You can get a blue yo-yo emblazoned with the
Crooked E, a fanny pack with the logo and the
slogan "Ask why" (a slogan government
investigators should take to heart) or an "Enron
Values" paperweight, engraved with the words
"integrity" and "respect" and a statement that
"ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don't
belong here."
My favorite Enron item on EBay (with a bid of
$202.50, as of yesterday) is a 64-page Enron code
of ethics book -- "in perfect condition, like new."
Never used.
-- -- --
Creative accounting made easy: Former Enron
employee Matt Mitchell has a listing on EBay for
what he describes as the "Enron Smoking Gun: Risk
Management Manual." It has a section headed
"Enhance Operating Margins," which teaches you
how to "shift the realization of income and expense
from period to period."
Mitchell, who has found another job at somewhat
less pay, tells me there isn't anything illegal in the
Enron risk-management manual, but the EBay listing
attracted a lot of attention in the press.
"I almost feel guilty," he said. "I did this as a joke,
but I got 9,000 hits and the top bid last time I
checked was $960."
-- -- --
Laid-off Enron employees have lost their 401(k)s
and are losing their homes,
but Enron CEO Kenneth Lay is suffering, too. He's
losing two homes and a lot - - but not a lot in the
same sense as his former employees are losing a lot.
The Aspen Times reported this week that Lay has
put three of his four Aspen properties on the market
-- two homes at about $6.5 million each and an
undeveloped lot for about $3 million.
That leaves poor Ken Lay with only one house in
Aspen. Awww.
-- -- --
Getting serious: Many Washington pundits have
been saying that Enron isn't a political scandal, but
simply a business scandal -- as if the business of the
Bush administration isn't business, and the energy
business at that.
I guess that's because in sex-obsessed,
money-blinded Washington you can't have a
scandal without a smoking intern. There's so much
money, soft and hard, being floated to politicians
that no one notices money, vast and untaxed,
floating to the Caymans.
Sorry, this is a political scandal all the way. Never
mind the fact that Lay and Bush were best pals,
with Lay helping set the nation's energy policy. Just
consider what the Enron collapse means for Social
Security "reform," one of the biggest issues on
Bush's political agenda.
Bush wants to turn a portion of Social Security
funds into personal retirement accounts. In other
words, money intended to be insurance against
financial disaster would be handed over to Wall
Street brokers, whose accounting practices and
conflicts of interest lead to disasters like Enron.
Remember that when you see an Enron employee
begging on the street in a T- shirt saying "My Enron
account and 50 cents bought this T-shirt."
They're available, along with a lot of other
anti-Enron T-shirts, from former Enron employee
Tim Dalton at his web site www.thecrookede.com.
-- -- --
Snack attack: My colleague Rob Hurwitt suggests
that from now on we refer to the chief executive as
"Pretzeldent Bush." |
