Soft Money, Hard Lesson - Why didn't Bush save Enron? (New Yorker Mag.)

[Dover]

SOFT MONEY, HARD LESSON
Issue of 2002-01-28
Posted 2002-01-21


The Bush Administration's reputation for never letting the outside world know what it's thinking is well deserved, but it's a safe bet that last week it was feeling wronged about Enron. The White House announced—that's announced, not concealed—that Kenneth Lay and other Enron brass had phoned two Cabinet secretaries and one under-secretary in October, as the company was starting its death rattle. As a reward for this candor, Washington went on full scandal alert, with the press and Congress demanding to be told who in the Administration knew what when and what they did about it. The problem with this line of attack is that when Enron got to the point of really needing some influence, it discovered that it hadn't bought any after all: the officials the company called evidently did nothing, and they seem to have made a point of not telling President Bush about the calls for more than two months, by which time it was too late to help. Another line of attack was on the opposite ground: that the Administration, in the words of Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, "did nothing to protect innocent employees and shareholders who ultimately lost their life savings." But if the Administration had swerved to avoid Charge No. 2 (doing too little) it would have crashed head on into Charge No. 1 (doing too much).

Let's say the Administration had wanted to help Enron. What could it have done? It had three options. First, it could have asked Congress to pass legislation on the model of the Chrysler bailout of 1979 or last fall's airline bailout. Second, it could have tried to persuade the Federal Reserve Board to invoke an obscure provision of its charter, under which, in extraordinary circumstances, the Fed is permitted to lend any entity any amount of money on any terms, if five of its seven governors O.K. it. Third, it could have tried to persuade Enron's major creditors to give the company a little more time—what's known in the trade as "moral suasion." The Clinton Administration did this during the South Korean financial crisis of 1998 and, just before it left office, in the California energy crisis. Moral suasion was certainly within the capacity of the Bush Administration, since the person handling most of the save-Enron calls, Peter Fisher, the Under-Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, helped run another such effort by the federal government in 1998, when Long-Term Capital Management was going under and Fisher, then at the New York branch of the Federal Reserve, helped talk its bankers into bailing it out.

The Bush Administration had to have known that Enron was in big trouble before the first calls came in, on October 26th...cont'd

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/020128ta_talk_lemann

[MadMaddie]

1. Because the emporer has no friends.....he disposes of his

money whores just as he would a fleck of dandruff....Lay and Enron meant nothing to him....Maybe when the American people get the hint that American citizens mean nothing to him....maybe we can get rid of the souless corrupt bastard....

[Ready4Change]

2. They had no interest in Enron the company. Only it's owners.

One of the Bush administrations first actions on taking power was to grant companies like Enron practically unlimited power to fleece their customers. Enron took immediate advantage of that, and thus funneled tons of money into the pockets of its ownership.

Bush Administration Mission Accomplished.

At that point, Enrons ownership screwed up and got caught. It was too big an affair, too early on, for the Bush administration to risk it's position defending their buddies. So, they set up a delaying tactic, hoping time would ease the issue and, if it didn't, they'd let their mistake prone buddies fry.

My 02.

[farmbo]

3. Bulls*!# alert!!! Bush DID try to save Enron.

One of his first official acts in January 2001 was to rescind Clinton's FERC regulations which had capped wholesale energy rates in California. At the same time Cheney was secretly meeting with Kenny Boy to coordinate their (ultimately successful) scheme to ratchet up CA's wholesale energy costs under a cover of a faux "energy crisis." Enron dominated and manipulated the newly deregulated market.

http://villagenews.weblogger.com/stories/storyReader$8625

This turned the state into a 24/7 casino for high-roller energy trading and Enron owned the house. The scheme yielded billions for Enron-- ripped from the pockets of CA's utility consumers.

Any wonder why Bush has fought so ferociously to keep Cheney's energy task force meetings secret?

This article is total BULLS$#!

[Dover]

6. Yes, with few exceptions, the media continues to report with blinders on.

A whitewash. Does anyone believe Bush won't pardon his buddies?

[Demeter]

4. BushCo Is NOT a Functional Entity

BushCo isn't designed, operated, or planned to actually accomplish anything. It's just a pirate fleet on the high seas, randomly sacking, looting, killing, and then going off to gorge on the proceeds. It is lawless--I got mine; screw you!

And since BushCo has great disdain for reality, science, planning, and anything that tells them that they must stop or at least slow down the plunder, even those members of the Brotherhood who DO know how to accomplish something get ambushed and stomped upon by the mindless greedy Bushbots. The GOP is just starting to learn this vital lesson. The rest of us caught on shortly after Enron.

And that's why Rove will sing like a bird. He's getting stomped on. And by Ashcroft's appointed Special Prosecutor. If it weren't our lives on the line, it would be the best comedy on television.

[Dover]

5. Yes indeedy...a pirate fleet. And Enron was created with the express

purpose of being a plunder -
to reap high profits through outright theft, and quickly get the loot out of the country into foreign bank accounts before the ship was sunk. Mission accomplished.

They have repeated this scenario in several areas.