Enough about Options already! <gg>
How about some derivatives chatter to add to the smorgasbord of corporate excess exorcisms?
riskcenter.com
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February 18: Enron - Congress Revisits Derivatives
Trading
Location: Washington, D.C.
Author: RiskCenter Staff
Date: Monday, February 18, 2002
Congress has started to zero in on derivatives trading as it
continued to investigate the issues raised by the Enron
collapse.
After initially digging into Enron's off-balance-sheet
partnerships and the company's questionable financing and
accounting schemes, lawmakers in both houses began
focusing on federal oversight of the energy trading business.
Some legislators pointed the finger at Enron's huge role,
through its EnronOnline trading platform, in the
over-the-counter market for power forwards, saying the
bankruptcy points to the need for more federal oversight.
Such increased regulation is the focus of legislation
introduced Thursday by a group of senators from Western
states, who want to further regulate wholesale energy
trading by subjecting derivatives deals, including
over-the-counter forward power deals and online trading of
those contracts, to more federal scrutiny.
The proposal would "make sure all energy transactions are
transparent and subject to some regulatory oversight,"
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of the bill's sponsors, said.
Feinstein said she, along with co-sponsors Maria Cantwell
(D-Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), are seeking to
"reinstate regulatory oversight to the marketplace and help
ensure there is not a repeat of the energy crisis that had
such a devastating impact on "California and the West."
The derivatives legislation may be added as an amendment
to a comprehensive energy bill that was set to be
introduced on the Senate floor late last week, Feinstein
said. But, she added, she did not want derivatives legislation
to be torpedoed if the comprehensive bill failed.
Last year's huge run-up in Western wholesale prices figured
prominently in the senators' statements on the need for
such legislation. They said Enron, because of the opacity of
derivatives and over-the-counter markets in which it traded,
may have been able to drive up wholesale prices in the
West, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it
would begin a formal probe into those allegations.
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Hi John,
Thanks so much for all the good work you are doing on putting the stock options debate together. You're doing such a splendid job, I'm leaving it in your able hands.
I have been so impressed this past couple of weeks with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R. - IL). He's a securities attorney and has been ripping the guts out of the Enron illusions. I expect his imprimatur on McCain's options bill will go a long way to helping steamroll the reforms that are starting to fly out of Congress. I fully expect the Administration to be as obstructionist as possible on meaningful reform. Something that hopefully the electorate will wake up to eventually. The rot in the American corporate system has gotten to intolerable levels and I'm delighted to see the pendulum start to swing back to rational policy instead of piracy as the corporate ideal.
-Ray |
