Linda
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/ivins7.htmPublished
Friday, Dec. 7, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News
Company's connections with
Bush go way back
Enron's pipeline crumbles
BY MOLLY IVINS
HAIL and
farewell, o Enron! What a flameout. The Establishment media,
sucking its
collective thumb with unwonted solemnity, is treating us to
meditations on
two themes: ``How the mighty have fallen,'' and, ``Who would
have thunk it?''
Pardon me while I snort, in lieu of ruder noises, and offer
two themes of my
own: ``What took so long?'' and, ``Anyone with an ounce of
common
sense.''
If you want to know what this story is about, pretend Bill
Clinton is still
president. Pretend Clinton's long-time, all-time biggest
campaign
contributor, a guy for whom Clinton has carried water for over the
years, a
guy with unparalleled ``access,'' a shaper of policy -- imagine that
this
guy's worldwide empire has tumbled into bankruptcy in just three months
amid
cascading reports of lies, monumental accounting errors, evasions,
iffy
financial statements, insider deals, a board of directors rife
with
conflicts of interest, top executives bailing out with millions
while
regular employees see their life savings shrink to nothing -- imagine
all
this back in the day of Bill Clinton.
We'd have four congressional
investigations, three special prosecutors, two
impeachment inquiries and a
partridge in a pear tree by now. Republicans
would be drumming their heels on
the floor in full tantrum.
But this is not President Clinton, it is
President Bush -- so of course
different standards must apply. The fact that
Ken Lay, Enron's chairman, has
been Bush's chief money man since he first
went into politics is mentioned
only in passing. The media don't want to be
impolite.
The main problem with Enron is that it has never produced much
of anything
in the way of either goods or services; it has not added a single
widget to
the world widget supply. Enron is in the business of
``financializing,''
making markets, trading in wholesale electricity, water,
data storage,
fiber-optics, just about anything.
Enron started as a
gas pipeline company that went into trading natural gas,
and even then the
company's critics claimed Enron was making profits by
stoking volatility in
gas prices. The same charge showed up again in spades
with the newly
deregulated electricity markets. Enron had lobbied for
utility deregulation
relentlessly, formidably and very expensively at both
the state and national
levels. The company seemed to spend more time
influencing government than
doing business.
Just a few spiffy eye-openers on Enron's
connections:
Lay and Enron together donated $2 million to George W.
Bush. In 2000, a
company memo that was an open strong-arm recommended
employees give campaign
checks for Bush to the political action committee:
low-level managers were
urged to contribute $500 and senior executives at
least $5,000. It gave more
money last cycle than any other energy
company.
Lawrence B. Lindsay, Bush's top economic adviser, got $50,000
from Enron in
2000 for consulting, presumably giving the company the same
excellent advice
now proving so healthy for the nation's economy.
Karl
Rove, Bush's top political strategist, sold between $100,000 and
$250,000
worth of Enron stock earlier this year, after being criticized for
conflict
of interest.
The California Legislature passed a contempt motion against
Enron for
failure to respond to a June 11 subpoena. The legislature is
investigating
whether power generating companies willfully manipulated
electricity supply
in order to drive up prices.
Lay was the only
energy executive to meet alone with Vice President Dick
Cheney while Cheney
was drawing up a new national energy policy in secret.
Enron influenced
public policy time and again while Bush was governor in
Texas. Enron was a
major player during the utilities deregulation debate,
for which Bush lobbied
actively, and in ``tort reform,'' making it harder to
sue corporations for
the damage they do.
===
Molly Ivins is a syndicated
columnist.
++++++++++++
http://www.rense.com/general17/magic.htm...
Of
the billions apparently secretly sucked out of Enron, the bulk went
disguised
as at least 600 billion dollars, if not even more, at key moments,
to
temporarily prop up the U.S. stock markets. That is, some 20 billion
dollars,
multiplied by the black magic of fractional reserves to 600 billion
dollars.
Some who count beans faster than others, contend it is actually
many
trillions of dollars, supported by fractional/fictional reserves piled
on
derivatives piled on drifting sand in some uncharted oily desert.
[As a
young man, having been taught mathematics by a protege of Albert
Einstein, I
might have years ago understood the illogic of multiplying 20
billion dollars
of purloined corporate funds into 600 billion dollars as
part of a trip on
the way to many trillions. As I recall, there is a
mathematics symbol for
negatives that cannot otherwise be balanced or
explained in a math equation.
I think they used to call it the "j" operator
or such. Nowadays, I would
label it the JACKASS SUBTRACTOR.]
Enron became the all-purpose,
world-circling trading desks for energy, a
contractor for oil, natural gas,
and electric services, a near-limitless
investment machine, a telecom, a
biggie piggy bank, an insurer. In short, as
major newsfaker Time Magazine
described it in their 12/10/01 issue "the
brash energy-trading giant called
Enron". And, "After weeks of escalating
financial troubles, business had
effectively collapsed in many of Enron's
most important markets. Only months
earlier, Enron was considered one of the
most innovative U.S. companies,
having brought new-economy tools [or was it
old-economy embezzling and money
laundering?-ed.] such as Internet and
sophisticated hedging strategies to the
old business of matching producers
and consumers of electricity, oil, natural
gas-and eventually some 800 other
commodities and services. Its operations
directly or indirectly touch almost
every American home and business." AND,
how many members of the U.S.
Congress and OTHER foreign parliaments do they
also touch? Is Enron a latter
day Bank of Crooks and Criminals International,
BCCI?
Like phantom money ship BCCI, Enron did their elaborate game of
changing
currencies hidden in a smokescreen of black art.
Dick Cheney
up to August, 2000, had been CEO of Halliburton, among other
things, a
supplier of oil industry machinery. [Hey, as of the posting of
this story, is
Halliburton another BCCI/ Enron device?] Through
Halliburton's overseas
units, Cheney, a major stockholder of Halliburton,
has apparently
treasonously supplied Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, a
disgruntled former
private business partner of Daddy Bush, what Saddam
needed to break the
embargo on oil shipments. [As to Daddy Bush/Saddam
Hussein, see our website
story, "The Secrets of Timothy McVeigh."]
Dictators, like some political
condiments gathering in a mythical
Chinese-style restaurant, seem to have
private business partnerships off and
on mixing with one another, at times
sweet, at times sour.
Cheney, Daddy Bush, Bush, Jr., and their circle
hovering around Big Oil,
used Enron as an accomplished cruise ship. Like
those Love Boats sailing the
Caribbean, U.S.S. Enron asked no questions of
those who brought on-board
their steamer-trunks of dirty money. The unwritten
deal was, Enron was
supposed to keep a per centage as a fee. In the real
world, there is a most
serious non-statutory offense, never violated by those
hoping to go up in
the Establishment, called FAILURE TO BRIBE. [I once
startled what I call a
court victim, stating YOU ARE GUILTY, after all of
THAT, right?]
Various "investment houses", actually money laundries, have
been bloodied by
Enron's collapse but are mostly silent. Did some brokers
screw some Enron
stock owners?
"The Enron episode further damages the
credibility of Wall Street analysts.
Richard Gross, an analyst at Lehman
Brothers...kept a 'strong buy' rating on
Enron's stock throughout the
decline. Lehman stood to earn a hefty fee for
advising Dynegy to buy Enron,
until Dynegy withdrew its offer. A Lehman
spokesman said it was the firm's
policy not to change its rating on a
company involved in a deal where Lehman
is an adviser. BUT ANYBODY WHO TOOK
LEHMAN'S ADVICE ON ENRON'S STOCK IN
RECENT MONTHS WOULD HAVE LOST ALMOST
EVERYTHING." New York Times story, "With
Enron's Fall, Many Dominoes
Tremble", 12/2/01 (Emphasis added.)
Enron,
while sinking, became the vessel from which was covertly extracted
(or
embezzled?) huge sums, multiplied by financial witchcraft, to
temporarily
prop up the failing stock markets. In 1929, many suckers really
believed the
bigshots who said they would bail out the markets. Except in
1929, it was
done out front, in 2001, secretly or not publicly spoken. [See
the book "The
Great Crash-1929" by Kenneth Galbraith, how that great fraud
empire, J.P.
Morgan, fooled the suckers into staying in a collapsing
market.]
Hey,
Greenspan/Redspan! Tell your wife, Andrea Mitchell, it is okay to pass
along
this "more than pillow talk" to General Electric, the boss of her boss
NBC
Network. And while you are at it, as Federal Reserve commissar, order
G.E. to
stop selling what some curse, their damned "too-often-burning-out"
light
bulbs.
Hey, Wendy Gramm! Call Enron, hurry up, before the phones are
disconnected.
[Wait a minute. Would a telecom giant like Enron have dead
phones?]
Is a tidal wave of Enron/Halliburton about to wreck the White
House? More
coming.
Stay tuned.
