HUME: Right. Now, let's talk about this for a second to get your impressions about the case of this one guy, John Walker, A.K.A...
MCCANN: Abdul Hamid.
HUME: To a military man like you, what's your gut reaction to a guy like that? I mean, he seems to have been a young, impressionable and perhaps, highly imaginative young man. But what about him?
MCCANN: That stopped mattering when he pointed a rifle. Bottom line is, it's like mathematics. You know, I'm a father myself, and I can only imagine the heartbreak of his dad, for a lot of different reasons.
That's one view I guess. Mine is, if he has given up the path to violence (if he even had one, sounds as if he was "guided"), let him go home and go about his peaceful business. i.e. If there is a "peace" made with the Taliban. Just like in any other war e.g.WW2. How long did we go on punishing them after they surrendered? He has certainly suffered by the looks of things....and no he didn't fly any aircraft into buildings as far as I can tell.
It would be good to see some "evildoers" stopped though, and see some justice in this world.
These guys will probably be responsible for a lot of pensioners either freezing or starving to death in the near future...
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siliconinvestor.com
Enron Paid $55 Million in Bonuses
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Collapsed energy trader Enron Corp. paid $55 million in bonuses to about 500 employees, days before it filed for bankruptcy and laid off 4,000 workers, sources told Reuters.
The bonuses were given out to entice certain employees to stay on after the filing, a source at an Enron trading unit told Reuters. A second source confirmed the payments.
The news comes on the heels of an announcement by the U.S. Labor Department (news - web sites) on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into questions about the handling of workers' retirement benefit plans.
The department's pension and welfare benefits administration is reviewing the company's benefits plans, the rules that govern them and steps taken by Enron shortly before its collapse to temporarily freeze trading of retirement plan assets.
``Enron's employees have gotten the short end of the stick in the sudden collapse of this company,'' Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement.
The Houston-based company filed the biggest U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in history on Sunday, listing assets of $49.8 billion and debts of $31.2 billion. It put another 3,500 workers on temporary leave, in addition to the 4,000 workers laid-off.
Employees who lost jobs after the bankruptcy filing were told they would not get any more than $4,500 in severance.
A Enron spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
money.telegraph.co.uk
A sea of red as the banks face major embarrassment
(Filed: 02/12/2001)
ENRON is every bankers' nightmare - a massive group operating at the margins of the financial markets through a complex web of trusts and partnerships.
This weekend hundreds of banks are scrambling to assess their losses, which are likely to run to billions of dollars. As bankers pick over the remains of what was America's seventh biggest company, the world's financial markets are asking how could the banks have lent so freely and failed to understand the risks.
The sums involved are mind-boggling. Enron's stated balance sheet debt is over $13bn. But analysts estimate the true figure could be as high as $23bn. This includes at least $9bn in bonds and loans as well as $13bn owed to suppliers of the energy contracts which Enron sold.
Just about every major bank has an exposure to Enron with many facing losses running to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Enron's chief lenders are JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. JP Morgan Chase has an exposure of $900m, with some $400m in secured loans. Citigroup's exposure is about $800m, with about half of the loans secured. About half of the money owed to the two banks covers a $1bn loan made in November and secured against one of Enron's pipelines.
British and European banking groups are also facing big losses. Abbey National has an exposure of £115m, of which £95m is unsecured. Barclays is known to have been one of the biggest arrangers of finance for Enron.
Barclays Capital, its investment banking business, is thought to have been involved in $3.9bn of loans to Enron over the past two years, though much of this will have been syndicated. Some analysts believe Barclays exposure could be as high as £300m. Royal Bank of Scotland is also believed to have held a large amount of Enron debt.
Other big American groups have been bruised. Bank of America is said to own about $300m in Enron debt, Bear Stearns is facing an estimated loss of $69m while analysts say that Bank of New York, FleetBoston Financial and Bank One all have sizeable exposures.
Other banking experts have also raised fears that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the investment banks, could run into problems as part of Enron's sophisticated trading network.
European banks have so far admitted to an exposure of about Eu1bn, including losses of $250m at Credit Lyonnais, $195m in unsecured loans held by ING, the Dutch group, $300m in loans at Aegon, another Dutch company, and $580m at WestLB, the German state-owned bank.
Regulators were last week playing down the risks to the financial system, arguing the exposures are manageable given the tens of billions of dollars of capital on bank balance sheets.
Shareholders, who have seen Enron's market value collapse from about $80bn last year to less than $500m, have also taken a beating. Pension funds and mutual fund investment companies have been the big losers. Calpers, the biggest US pension fund, has lost $42m in the last few weeks. New York State's $112bn Common Retirement Fund is facing a loss of $60m.
The biggest losers are the mutual fund managers. Enron's largest shareholders at the end of September were led by Alliance Capital, which, incredibly, increased its stake in late summer to 5.78 per cent, Janus Capital, with 5.56 per cent, and leading fund managers Fidelity, Putnam Investment and State Street. Barclays Global Investors, one of the world's biggest index fund managers, held 3.1 per cent.
Many are asking how so many supposedly smart investors could have misjudged Enron's financial position so badly. Part of the problem is that Enron was included in the S&P 500 index. This forced managers who track an index to hold the shares even as the company's financial woes became increasingly obvious. Enron was only dumped from the S&P 500 on Thursday night.
The ratings agencies are also under fire for failing to downgrade Enron's debt from investment grade status until last Wednesday. Critics point out that the three main ratings agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, deferred the downgrade as Dynegy tried to pull off its $8bn rescue takeover, despite the fact that Enron's debt was already trading at junk bond levels.
Citigroup and JP Morgan had also put in place a $1bn secured credit line which was priced at junk bond levels. When the agencies did cut their ratings it was savage and immediately triggered a $3.9bn repayment due to bondholders.
Which creditors get paid will be one of the most contentious issues when Enron files for bankruptcy, and there will be years of legal battles over the remaining assets. Shareholders face being wiped out and bondholders may only get a few cents in the dollar.
For the banks there is a more immediate nightmare - to unravel Enron's trading relationships, which could drag hundreds of companies into financial difficulty.
Enron ran a massive trading book made up of complex derivatives transactions with thousands of counterparties, many of them energy companies or trading groups. Enron's counterparties had their own borrowing and trading arrangements with banks, raising the prospect that the banks could face even bigger exposures.
Despite the assurances of regulators, no one really knows what the knock-on effect of Enron's collapse will be. While many energy traders took the precaution of scaling back or even cutting their ties with Enron in recent months, many traders are thought to be facing losses of $50m or more.
For JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the trading company's collapse is a huge embarrassment. Hundreds of banks have had been burnt and will have to write off billions - a sum which looks set to increase as the true impact of Enron's spectacular failure emerges. |
