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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (46512)	1/16/2002 12:58:59 AM
From: Dealer	Respond to of 65232

Thanks Wstera for prof-reading my Afterquotes......and finding the error....... I still had the time to fix it and did. luv, dealie (he so nice)

To: Sully- who wrote (46512)	1/16/2002 1:08:58 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

The Gottesdiener Law Firm Releases Enron 'Lockdown' E-mails WASHINGTON, Jan 15, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Two e-mails that Enron sent workers this past Fall concerning the "lockdown" of the company's 401(k) Plan were released today by The Gottesdiener Law Firm (www.gottesdienerlaw.com). Gottesdiener, the head of the Washington, D.C. 401(k) and pension class action law firm that filed suit in November against Enron Corporation, top Enron officials, Arthur Andersen and other defendants in federal court in Houston to recover some $1 billion in Enron employees' retirement savings (www.enronsuit.com), believes the e-mails show the company's "callous disregard" for its employees. According to Gottesdiener, many of Enron's employees were in the midst of losing their life savings and their jobs during the "lockdown," which prevented them from selling their shares of Enron stock between October 26, 2001 and November 13, 2001, while the Company spiraled into bankruptcy. According to Enron, the lockdown was administratively necessary for the company to proceed with a desired change of the 401(k) Plan's trustee and record keeper. However, the suit filed by Gottesdiener on behalf some 15,000 current and former Enron employees disputes that any lockdown was necessary to change service providers. He further alleges that, even if necessary, it should have been postponed to allow employees, who had more than 60% of their account savings in Enron stock, to sell their stock and salvage some of their investment. The just-released e-mails, according to Gottesdiener, reveal two fundamental problems with the way Company executives handled the lockdown. First, Gottesdiener said, the e-mails show that the Company "arrogantly dismissed the concerns of employees who had been imploring them to delay the lockdown." Second, Gottesdiener said, they also show that the Company issued false information about the lockdown, leading many workers to believe that the lockdown began a week earlier than it did and causing them to miss the opportunity to sell their stock when it was still selling for around $30 a share. According to Gottesdiener, by the time the lockdown was finally lifted, on November 13, 2001, the price of Enron stock had plummeted to under $10 a share. The first e-mail was issued the night of October 25, 2001, just before the imposition of the lockdown the next day. Gottesdiener explained that the Company issued the email because it had been besieged by workers who were begging the Company to postpone the lockdown to allow them to sell their shares. The e-mail twice acknowledged workers' complaints, saying: "We understand that you are concerned about the timing" of the lockdown and "We understand your concerns." But, the Company said, it was going ahead with the lockdown as planned anyway for its own administrative convenience, saying, "We have been working with Hewitt (the new recordkeeper) and Northern Trust (the old record keeper) since July." According to Gottesdiener, "In translation, this says: `We know that many of you have all of your savings in Company stock and want to sell it to salvage what you can, but we simply can't be bothered - we've been working on this transition since July and it would be too much trouble to postpone it.'" The second e-mail was issued on September 27, 2001 and was the Company's initial announcement to employees about the lockdown. The problem here, according to Gottesdiener, was that the information contained in the e-mail was "simply false." The e-mail told employees that the lockdown - which Enron euphemistically termed a "transition" - would begin on October 19th, and not October 26th. "To ensure that records and individual accounts are converted accurately," the e-mail said, "a transition period of approximately one-month will begin Oct. 19." "During the transition period," the e-mail continued," participants "are not able to transfer funds among investment options" or "request a withdrawal." According to Gottesdiener, that last statement was false: "In fact, workers could have sold their Enron stock between October 19th and October 26th. During just that week, right after the Company issued its dramatic 3rd Quarter statement and the SEC opened its investigation, the stock lost half of its value." Gottesdiener said that many workers did not sell during that week based on the Company's statement that they could not do so. "Where were Ken Lay and other top Company officials all while this was going on? The answer seems to be: On the phone to the Bush administration asking for a bailout," Gottesdiener said. Gottesdiener's reference was to the fact that while the Company was refusing workers' calls to postpone the lockdown, Enron's Chairman Kenneth L. Lay and other top officials, who personally made tens of millions of dollars from selling off their Enron stock, were telling Bush administration officials that without some form of government assistance, Enron was looking at bankruptcy. "Enron's arrogance in refusing to delay the lockdown, knowing what it knew, is simply stunning. From the beginning to the end of the lockdown, October 26th-November 13th, the stock lost another third of its value," Gottesdiener explained. "We are obviously pursuing all this in court but the pension laws have to be strengthened to prevent this type of victimization of workers in the future." NOTE: The e-mails are available at enronsuit.com. ABOUT THE GOTTESDIENER LAW FIRM Based in Washington, D.C., the Gottesdiener Law Firm and its principal attorney, Eli Gottesdiener, specialize in complex civil and criminal litigation on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants in federal and state courts. Mr. Gottesdiener has prosecuted some of the leading pension and 401(k) plaintiffs' class action cases in the country, including Mehling v. New York Life Ins. Co., a pending pension and 401(k) class action case against New York Life Insurance Company; Gottlieb v. SBC Communications, Inc., a 401(k) class action against SBC; and Franklin (I and II) v. First Union Corp., two 401(k) class actions against First Union Corporation that were recently successfully settled for $26 million.

To: Sully- who wrote (46512)	1/16/2002 12:30:13 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Meet the Street: Is Freer Trade the Answer to U.S. Economic Woes? Wednesday January 16, 7:30 am Eastern Time TheStreet.com By Lee Barney With unemployment reaching a six-year high of 5.8% in December and massive layoffs continuing at major U.S. corporations, it's no surprise that President Bush has been advocating freer world trade as a way of stimulating the U.S. economy and creating more jobs. Christoph Bianchet, U.S. economist for Credit Suisse Asset Management, believes the president's push for greater trade will have positive long-term benefits for the U.S. economy, even if the trade deficit remains at $300 billion or more. But Bianchet explains here why it probably won't be the short-term solution that Bush is seeking. TSC: President Bush has been traveling the Mississippi stumping for greater free trade as a way of creating more jobs for Americans. There's also a bill in the Senate on this very issue. What can you tell us about this bill? Bianchet: The bill in the Senate is a provision for presidential "fast track" negotiating ability -- power with other countries to come up with trade agreements globally under the World Trade Organization, which would prevent the Congress from interfering with current negotiations. Their only authority, in the end, is to approve or disapprove what the president and other leaders, under the World Trade Organization, agree on. TSC: How unusual is this "fast track" approach? Bianchet: In terms of general legislation, it is unusual, but just keep in mind that Bill Clinton had fast-track authority until it expired in 1994, and the Congress simply did not renew it, in spite of Clinton's lobbying to have it reinstated. So, it has been in place for various trade negotiations, including the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. President Bush is simply taking a new stab at it. TSC: With which countries is the U.S. likely to be expanding free trade? There are two key issues here at stake: freer trade among nations globally, which means bringing tariffs down with almost everybody on the globe. And the other thing President Bush is pushing for is this so called FTAA, "Free Trade of the Americas," which would include more Latin American countries. We're likely to see more trade between the U.S. and the European Union. China, too, is going to be a huge issue going forward with it joining the WTO and submitting to the rules of the WTO. It will undoubtedly affect global trading patterns. Africa could have some impact on the European Union in terms of export of agricultural goods, but they are not organized enough as individual nations. TSC: Do you expect that this will, indeed, create more jobs and is this what the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) has shown us? Bianchet: One thing NAFTA has shown us is that you will always find compelling evidence for both sides of a trade argument. While I have not seen specific figures to the effect of how many U.S. jobs may have been created since NAFTA, trading volumes between the U.S. and our North American counterparts has increased significantly. Trade volume with Mexico has tripled, and when you look at U.S. exports to Mexico alone, they have doubled since NAFTA. So, certainly, there is an argument to be made that the U.S. export industry is profiting from our free-trade agreement with Mexico. In the short term, however, more free trade, or freer trade agreements, are not going to result in more jobs, simply because it will take years for any new free trade agreement to make its way through the World Trade Organization and the various legislative bodies, including Congress. So, it is a bit misleading for Bush to say that free trade automatically equals more jobs. I believe that will happen in the long term but it's not a short-term measure that will take us out of the current economic slump. TSC: While exports to Mexico may be a success story, from the U.S.' point of view, the U.S. trade deficit is sizable. In fact, you project that the data to be released Friday by the Commerce Department will place the U.S. trade deficit for the 12 months ended Nov. 30 at $358 billion. Couldn't freer trade exacerbate the U.S. trade deficit and end up hurting, instead of helping, domestic jobs? Bianchet: There is some argument to be made that the U.S. export market is profiting quite substantially since the introduction of NAFTA. Whether imports, which have also increased in volume, are taking away, or substituting [for] domestic jobs, is an issue, and is always on the agenda of the more liberal side of politics. But as a trained economist in the dogma of competitive forces, I am a strong believer in the mutual benefits of free trade. It is so compelling to see that free trade is mutually beneficial for all countries around the world. And the American consumer could benefit from lower import prices, as well. TSC: But couldn't lower import prices increase the trade deficit and more importantly, hurt American manufacturing and jobs? Bianchet: Yes, but the trade deficit is really an interesting figure when you start digging into the details because a lot of this trade that counts as imports is actually imports from U.S. affiliates, so this figure is probably exaggerated by 30% to 40%. Having said that, I will admit that the deficit could get worse, but in the end, longer term, it's mutually beneficial for all countries that engage in free trade. So I think longer term, Mr. Bush is right. Free trade will create more jobs -- not destroy them -- because in an open economy you are constantly reminded that it's all about competitiveness and invention on a global scale. And that makes U.S. goods more attractive on a global scale.