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Non-Tech : The ENRON Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (2646)	2/8/2002 10:36:35 AM
From: Ron	Respond to of 5185

Well I must say I agree with you completely on campaign reform. Our current system is ridiculous. The McCain Feingold bill is a start, but I favor further changes. I doubt congress will make them, entrenched as it is in campaign dollars, and filled with lawyers, it likely will continue along its absurd road. Aside from Skilling's performance during the hearings yesterday, I found the shameless preening and mugging by members of the US Congress to be disgusting as well. By the way, based on your commentary and spelling, I would judge YOU to be among the unwashed :) From the WSJ: WASHINGTON -- Riding a wave of popular revulsion over Enron Corp.'s collapse, members of Congress vilified the senior executives whose elaborate accounting schemes built up and ultimately brought down one of America's largest companies, portraying them as symbols of arrogance, immorality and excess. Highlighting a daylong hearing were a series of heated confrontations between increasingly incredulous House members and former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, who steadfastly denied knowledge of improper activities by his subordinates and of many of the details of the conflict-ridden partnerships that brought the company down. "On the day I left, I absolutely and unequivocally thought the company was in good shape," Mr. Skilling told the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee, recalling his abrupt August 2001 departure. Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) said Mr. Skilling's responses reminded him of the bumbling Sgt. Schultz on "Hogan's Heroes": "I know nothing. I see nothing." Hours earlier, Enron's former treasurer, Jeffrey McMahon, testified that he provided explicit warnings about the partnerships to Mr. Skilling at a March 2000 meeting. But Mr. Skilling insisted, "I recall a meeting with Mr. McMahon, but I don't recall him saying that." Mr. Skilling only recalled discussing Mr. McMahon's concerns about his own compensation. "I have a hard time believing that," Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, responded. The hearing yielded new details about the extent to which top Enron executives had been warned about the dangers of off-books partnerships that disguised company debt and enriched certain top officials. All told, the events of the day heralded something larger: the emergence of Enron as a symbol of business extravagance and a cudgel for those pushing new regulation of corporate finance, pensions and accounting. The climax of weeks of revelations about the company's practices under the glare of scrutiny by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and a dozen congressional committees, an atmosphere of history and histrionics prevailed. "What we have before us is a story of simple, old-fashioned theft -- and the inexplicable acts, or lack thereof, that allowed the crooks to get away and to destroy a company," said Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican.