Corrected sentence: “But even if I didn’t I don’t see how anyone can possibly argue that the evaluating the energy policy that Enron urged–and that Bush bought into–is [NOT] a valid part of the political ramifications of this story.”
Sorry, rjung, but it looks like your boy Elvis was the one that got schooled on the facts and ducked out. December cracked an anecdote, Elvis got all condescending and snide, december then responded, and then Elvis…well, Elvis hasn’t been seen since.
Let’s try and keep your delusions to a minimum here.
I still don’t see this as a (partisan) political story. I do see it as a story about a powerful corporation abusing the public trust.
Enron bamboozled Arthur Andersen. Either AA was stupid enough to be complicit in the audits, or not smart enough to spot the problems and realize their scope, or both. Enron’s (especially Skilling’s) statements will hopefully return to bite them in their posterior fleshy parts; the top people knew exactly what they were doing.
Enron steamrolled Wall Street. It brought up (again) how difficult it is for analysts to give honest opinions when there is investment banking money to be had.
Enron unsuccessfully tried to influence the credit agencies. Credit to whomever they dealt with in the Bush administration for not intervening.
Arthur Andersen, to the extent it knew there were problems, did not have the independence (a HUGE catchword in the Big 5 industry even before Enron; maybe now it will be taken much more seriously by both audit firms and their clients) to effectively challenge Enron on so much as a spelling error. When it hits the fan, AA is in panic mode (by Enron’s direction? who knows?) and getting rid of non-essential documents. If there is one thing AA knows, it’s how big a case can be built from non-essential documents.
Enron collapsed because of accounting misstatements and irregularities. Might Enron have lobbied to try and get favorable accounting rulings? Hell, my firm lobbies to get favorable accounting rulings. If it is decided in my firm’s favor, does that mean that they had undue influence on the decision?
I am not saying that the Bush administration does not have deeper ties in the energy industry than did the Clinton. I simply don’t think it is germaine to Enron’s fall from grace. [And both sides should shout loudly at Enron - there’s votes to be had here. Just that some are too lazy and use Enron to go for the cheap partisan shot. Plays better on the evening news and Sunday talk shows]
Wow Nerotik don’t you look silly now. You should have checked Elvis’s link before you spoke up. Dispite decembers allegation, there is in fact no evidence that Clinton ever had Lay over to stay in the Lincoln bedroom. But Bush 41 did. And we learned from another poster on this very thread that the golf game Clinton and Lay played a democrats vs. republicans match. And Lay came as a… you guessed it… Republican. Lay didn’t play golf with Clinton, he played against him.
[sub]If you had some veggies to go with that face you could make an omlette. [/sub]
Actually, Tejota, I’m looking at december’s post, and you know what? He never mentioned Lay staying over in the Lincoln bedroom. So, basically, Elvis provided a link refuting an argument that december never made. Quality work.
You might want to look into what was actually said before you start saying that other people look silly, Tejota.
Well, I didn’t read the whole thread because I basically knew what everyone was going to say after reading 4 or 5 replies.
I’ll tell you what I see. The Dem’s are hoping and praying and doing everything they can to make Enron a scandal for Bush. The problem is that the Dem’s took money from Enron and Bush and his staff did nothing wrong. In fact, if you do a little research, Enron tried to talk Clinton and Bush into accepting the Kyoto accords. Gore wanted the Kyoto accords to happen and Enron loved the idea. Bush, being smart enough to understand that Kyoto would totally kill the US economy, killed that idea.
For you Bush hating posters, check this out, Bush is clean on this. Hell, the press figured that out and stopped trying. In fact most Dems in office figured that out. While Enron is still a big issue most people learned enough to know that Bush wasn’t involved. Hell, some Enron exec called a couple of Bush people for help and was shot down. All you are doing by whipping this dead mule is showing that you are weak.
Slee
sleestak, no one is saying that Bush was a party to the Enron meltdown. People are questioning who formulated the Bush energy policy, including the Bush decision to not step in during the California crisis. Those are serious questions, and ones that the Bush administration is not helping to answer by stonewalling.
There has not been any successful conclusion to the whole thing because the Bush Administration refuses to cooperate. The media ought to be paying a LOT more attention to this than they are.
Well, we seem to be going in circles on this but where I come from a decision like this, which is basically a question of statutory interpretation to determine fundamental jurisdiction, isn’t a policy question.
You seem to be saying CMFA is clinton’s fault but if I read you correctly that was a good thing anyway?
I think you have to work pretty hard to establish any connection between Enron wanting Kyoto and Gore wanting Kyoto. Gore wanted Kyoto because, despite his tendency to cave into corporate interests, he does seem by inclination to be an environmentalist. This means that he is actually willing to side with the environment over corporate interests occasionally.
And, I find it amusing that the whole Kyoto thing is supposed to exonerate the Bush Administration from accusations of undue influence over their policy from their energy industry buddies! After all, Kyoto is a subject on which Enron disagreed with most of the Bush & Cheney oil buddies, so the fact that they sided with their other buddies over Enron on this one proves what?
And, congratulations for buying uncritically into the bogus claims that Kyoto would “totally kill the US economy”.
No, I remembered too late the hopelessness of presenting facts to those who have no interest in them when they conflict with the view of the world they prefer to have. And there is more than one such poster here in this thread, hmm???
FTR, there is such a thing as life outside the SDMB (Gaaahhh!!! No!!!) and I occasionally indulge in it for as much as hours at a time.
Carry on.
december never made a specific argument, just mentioned his typical “memory” of having heard a Paul Harvey commentary saying general things about a Clinton-Enron connection, in the transparent hope of neutralizing the political implications to Bush and the GOP. More specific allegationss have been made, falsely, elsewhere in the conservative media, and I presented the most common and blatant such lie in the hope that it was one of the things that december was thinking of as fact. That’s a pre-emptive debate tactic, not “silliness”, with the hoped-for side effect of helping the more credulous participants in this thread be more sufficiently skeptical of their sources. Perhaps that includes you?
If december, or you for that matter, has anything more specific to charge, you’ll be rewarded with specific responses. Vague sneers such as the type you two have made have already been treated with more respect than they deserve.
Put up or shut up, my friend.
Principally Henry Waxman, but there are ample others. And while now both parties may well be shouting Enron, it didn’t start that way.**
If the general public wants to know that on the general grounds of “I want to know who’s influencing public policy,” then fine – let’s find out all the entities involved in influencing policy, and the extent to which they so influence. If, on the other hand, the public wants to know that because of the Enron collapse, then the public is a bunch of ill-informed boobs.
Indeed, I suspect John Q. Public hasn’t really looked into the detailed reasons as to why Enron collapsed. They just hear “Enron is sleazy.” Then someone asks “should we know if Enron influenced Bush?” Mr. John Q. Public hasn’t informed himself enough to know there isnt’ a link between the collapse and energy policy, so he says “yes, of course.”**
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A Nation article? Can I cite National Review articles in reply? Please.
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Well, the things that led to Enron’s collapse – namely the (mis)use of SPE’s and the failure to consolidate them into the company’s financial statements – have always been self-regulating (those rules are set up by FASB, not a government agency); it isn’t part of any “trend” at all.
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Related to #2: if you’re talking about the relative absence of regulation in the derivatives markets, kindly explain how unregulated derivatives trading led to Enron’s collapse. And I don’t mean in a hand-waving, glittering generality kind of way; I mean specifically. It didn’t. Misuse of SPEs did. And any company that uses SPEs (generally, any company that uses large, capital-intensive projects – energy companies frequently use them to finance the building of new plants) could conceivably abuse the system in much the same way as Enron.**
Look, if the policy is a bad policy, it’s a bad policy, and can be evaluated on its own merits. It shouldn’t matter if the bastard child of Professor Harold Hill and Darth Vader is the one making the proposal.**
Clarification: I don’t think anyone in the White House or in Congress are responsible for Enron’s specific crimes at all. Only Enron officials are responsible.**
I haven’t the slightest problem with people being skeptical about free market solutions. But if you’re going to use the Enron collapse as an argument against free-market solutions, at least make a tangible, logical tie between the collapse and the free-market solutions you’re decrying. To do otherwise is just mudslinging and, yes, partisanship.
And which poster would that be, Elvis? You accused december of propogating a lie. You then provided a link proving the Lay never spent a night in the Lincoln bedroom during the Clinton Administration. All well and good.
Except for the small fact that december never mentioned Lay spending the night in the Lincoln bedroom during Clinton’s time in office. So you provided a link disproving an allegation that was never made…and then you go on saying that no one else has an interest in the truth. Does anyone else see the problem here? Of course, I don’t expect Elvis to admit graciously that he was wrong, since he seems utterly incapable of such a thing.
Indeed there is, and I’m glad you don’t spend all of your time on the boards. The joys of the real world is why I have not posted on the boards for over a week, until yesterday.
However, for rjung to start ragging on december for supposedly ducking out, while he had actually done more to respond than than you had was my point. It seems that those who agree with rjung’s ideology can do no wrong, while those who disagree can do no right. And that is just a stupid attitude to have.
Look, my practice includes securities work. And I can tell you that, when researching a question of securities law, if the regulations are unclear, one of the next places to turn are no-action letters. You’d better believe they represent policy questions – namely, the view the SEC is taking on implementing certain policies. And they aren’t limited to jurisdiction questions, either; where you got that idea is anyone’s guess.
A real-life example: The securities laws and SEC regulations impose limitations on the resale of securities issued privately under certain exemptions from registration. A client, concerned that the value of his shares would soon fall, wanted to know if he could sell a put as a means of locking in the current share price since due to those limitations he could not actually sell the shares for several months. The regulations were silent on the point. There was, however, a no-action letter that, unfortunately for our client, said you could not do this. If that isn’t policy, what is?
Look, here’s a nice definition of a no-action letter from the UC-Hastings Law Library: “No-action letters express positions to companies and individuals that have requested information on SEC policy.”
**
Correct, though “fault” is the wrong word. “Responsibility” is more accurate, since if the CMFA is as bad as its detractors say it is, then Clinton certainly had a responsibility to veto it. Personally, I don’t think it was a bad law and I’m glad he signed it. Kudos to Clinton on that one.
Put up or shut up, Elvis? Please join me in the Pit.
Dewey: “Both parties may well be shouting Enron, it didn’t start that way.”
What difference does it make how it started? Enron has tapped into a populist nerve and both parties want to exploit it by demonstrating they’re the party that cares for the common man. I repeat, it’s absurd to call something that both parties are doing “partisan.”
A more interesting question for you is why are Republican supporters not more vocal about the fact that Democrats are just as corrupt as they are. Why indeed? 
"If the general public wants to know that on the general grounds of “I want to know who’s influencing public policy,” then fine–let’s find out all the entities involved in influencing policy…
By all means, let us! I’ve got no problem with that strategy whatsoever. But, I’d add, that a call for a full airing of all dirty laundry is a far cry from your argument that any inquiry into Enron either is or derives from narrow partisanship of Democrats.
“If, on the other hand, the public wants to know [who’s influencing public policy] because of the Enron collapse, then the public is a bunch of ill-informed boobs.”
Say what? Most ordinary citizens had no idea that something like Enron could happen, much less how. This is much like saying that if the public wants to know about Afghanistani history as part of understanding the wider issue of terrorism because of 9/11, then the public is a bunch of “ill-informed boobs.”
As to the extent of the public’s knowledge, I agree that the American public tends to be superficially informed on this and many other issues. But, again, your response to the problem is contradictory since your tendency is to reject all discussion of the matter as rank partisanship.
I repeat: if you want full public disclosure of everything, that is one thing (and, if so, we entirely agree). But if you want to limit public discussion to what is convenient for your personal political agenda then you can change your name to Dewey Blow-Much-Smoke-on-Questions-of-Partisanship Undhow
" A Nation article? Can I cite National Review articles in reply? Please."
Sorry Dewey, that kind of response simply won’t cut it. The Nation is an authoritative source with most Nation aritcles written by respected journalists and academic experts. While it’s liberal perspective is no secret, The Nation can’t be dismissed as propaganda. If you have some problem with the facts as they are asserted in either of my two posts from The Nation feel free–no, feel positive exhorted–to make them plain. I assure you I would find your dissent interesting rather than otherwise.
As to The National Review, feel free to cite from it if that’s from where your opinions and understanding of the facts derives.
“Well, the things that led to Enron’s collapse – namely the (mis)use of SPE’s and the failure to consolidate them into the company’s financial statements – have always been self-regulating (those rules are set up by FASB, not a government agency); it isn’t part of any “trend” at all.”
Excuse me, are you denying that there’s been a trend away from government regulation and towards corporate self-regulation since, say, the early 1980s? Pardon me while I recover from a laughing fit.
And, no, Dewey, there’s no need for you to rehearse you’re arguments once again.
We know that you want to reduce the question of Enron’s collapse to the narrowest possible questions of procedure. We know that you see any question of context, or history–any location within the larger picture–as at best an ignorant irrelevance and at worst an act of rankest partisanship.
We know that we’re permitted to talk about questions of laissez-faire ideology and undue corporate influence over the political process, but only if we don’t mention the name (shhhhh…) “Enron” while doing it since, if we do, we are automatically showing our partisanship even if we are fully ready to concede that (shhhhhhh…) “George Bush” isn’t the only politician and that (shhhhhh…) “Republicans” aren’t the only political party that is part of the problem.
We know that you subscribe to a peculiar circular logic that says that we can’t discuss Enron as an example of corporate influence, or George Bush and Cheney as examples of politicians influenced by corporate contributors (even if we’re perfectly willing to concede that there’s plenty more to say on the subject) because thse examples just happen to inconvenient for policies and politicians that Dewey, to all appearances, seems somewhat attached to.
And we know that if we persist in asking these questions or defending the position of those who do that we are in danger of being thought partisans, “boobs” or both. Furthermore, we know that if we provide articles showing that the question is not one of narrow partisanship, but of wider questions of how the economy ought to be governed, and what direction the political process ought to move in, that our sources will be dismissed–entirely unread by you though they will remain–as being beneath the notice of one who has already decided that anything that counters his own viewpoint is always automatically too partisan for his notice.
Just to make it a little harder for you to blow off a bona fide analysis of an historical trend that few conservatives disavow, here’s an excerpt from one of Krugman’s columns of the matter. (Note: I tried to get you one from the Times own archive but none were available without your having to pay. This one was published by the San Francisco Chronicle and has been archived by commondreams.org )
*"The Enron experiment was, in essence, about doing away with regulation – regulation of prices, regulation of financial trading. Most of these regulations had their origin in fear that consumers, workers and investors would be exploited by those whom Theodore Roosevelt called “malefactors of great wealth.”
Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own executives called a “regulatory black hole” in which it could operate freely."*
Now I can’t specifically name for you which particular financial trading regulations and price regulations were the ones either rolled back or left unenforced. I can, however, provide several articles for you if you really wish it–and if you agree in advance that you will read them and rebut them rather then blow dismiss them. But since Krugman is a well-respected economist (respected enough that Enron actually paid him to be on their Board for a time, as I understand it) I can only assume that you’ll do him the justice of refuting his claims before dismissing him either as boob, partisan, ideologue, or what have you.
*"f [free-market energy] policy is a bad policy, it’s a bad policy, and can be evaluated on its own merits. It shouldn’t matter if the bastard child of Professor Harold Hill and Darth Vader is the one making the proposal."
All other things being equal it shouldn’t and, perhaps, won’t. But the fact of the matter is that Darth Vader hasn’t been pushing for the deregulation of energy markets, and buying political influence left and right, while he’s at it. Kenneth Lay and Enron have, and their dishonesty and criminal activity is now the subject of worldwide discussion. Again, very inconvenient for you, but a fact.
However, I sympathize so much with your frustration, that I invite you, if you wish, to open a new thread that asks us to evaluate energy deregulation on its own merits. I think that would be a very helpful move at this point as, on these issues, as it’s quite possible that we’ve exhausted anything here that might be genuinely informative.
“Clarification: I don’t think anyone in the White House or in Congress are responsible for Enron’s specific crimes at all. Only Enron officials are responsible.”
Clarification. I also don’t believe that anyone in Congress or the White House committed or directly abetted a crime.
“But if you’re going to use the Enron collapse as an argument against free-market solutions, at least make a tangible, logical tie between the collapse and the free-market solutions you’re decrying. To do otherwise is just mudslinging and, yes, partisanship.”
This has been the gist of just about every column Krugman has written on the subject of Enron since the collapse first occurred. (That is, that leaving corporate oversight to corporations themselves has created an environment in which these kinds of frauds could be perpetrated, undetected, until such time as economic collapse occurred–a collapse that hurt thousands of Americans of their savings invested in mutual funds, pension funds, etc.) Since he knows more about it than I do, as I said, I’ll continue to provide you with citations for you to rebut, so long as you agree to read them and not just blow them off. But before we move on to Krugman’s columns why don’t we just begin with what I’ve cited so far.
Please read 1) “How Enron did Texas,” 2) the second cited Nation piece, and 3) Krugman column cited above (in which Enron is likened to Argentina). Once you explain to me how all of these articles are misinformed or otherwise incorrect, we can move on to some other stuff written by Krugman–if, of course, you possess the time and the will.
Yuck, I apologize for mistaken italics in the middle of my post. If any moderator feels inclined to edit, I’d be grateful: I accidentally hit submit instead of preview.
FYI, Krugman’s columns are available for free here:
http://www.pkarchive.org/
I would aslo recommend the “Power Perplex” column. Happy readin’, DCU .
It bears repeating, yet again: I have no problem with inquiries into who influences government policy. But to call out Enron specifically is basically to bootstrap that inquiry from the Enron collapse. It suggests that, instead of a general desire for government transparency, the reason for such an inquiry is the collapse itself, not. That is what is dishonest here.**
No, it isn’t, because Afghani history might have some conceivable bearing on terrorism in general and 9/11 specifically. Studying Enron’s lobbying efforts throws no light on the accounting irregularities that led to Enron’s collapse (indeed, a study of Andersen’s lobbying efforts would be more germane to the Enron collapse than anything Enron had to say on the NEP).**
No, and that isn’t what I said. I said the things that led to Enron’s collapse – namely the disclosure rules for SPEs – have never been regulated in the first place. A thing can’t be part of a deregulation trend if it’s never been regulated in the first place.
Oh, and re: Krugman’s columns – his analysis is just ridiculous. He hand-waves about the “Enron experiment” (whatever the hell that means) and the fact that Enron pushed for deregulation, but never bothers to explain how that deregulation ties to accounting that caused the Enron failure. That is just a colossal missing premise in the whole argument.
You keep trying to psychoanalyze me as a deregulatory zealot. While it’s true that I generally favor free-market approaches, I’m hardly a laizzez-faire nutcase. You, on the other hand, appear steadfastly determined to make the Enron failure a cause celebre in your own anti-deregulation zealotry.
Look, I’m perfectly willing to listen to arguments against deregulation (hell, sometimes I even agree with them). But if you’re going to use the Enron failure as an argument against deregulation, you need to establish cause and effect. Show that deregulation caused (or that a given type of regulation would have prevented) the Enron failure. Then, and only then, will you have made a substantive case worth addressing.
Because as it stands, all I see is hand-waving and glittering generalities. Pointing out that “Enron operated in a deregulated environment” and that “Enron failed” in the same paragraphy isn’t enough. Plenty of companies operate in a deregulated environment without failing. You have to give a compelling reason for believing that the two are related.
Incidentally, later in your post you say that “the gist of just about every column Krugman has written on the subject of Enron” and that you’ll just defer to his authority. Two problems:
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I read Krugman semi-regularly and he’s never explicitly addressed this point in any column I can remember. He’s bitched about deregulation loudly and often, and he’s complained about the accounting rules that allowed the Enron collapse, but he’s never tied the two together in anything but a hand-waving sort of way.
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This is a blatant appeal to authority, a logical fallacy. I don’t mind citing to columnists for facts, but your analysis should be your own.
By the way, this is the same Krugman who wrote “I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.” Yeah, Paul, sure, whatever you say.
Incidentally, Krugman’s columns are available at The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive.**
What you seem to be saying here is “you’re right, it really shouldn’t matter who proposed the policy and the policy really should be evaluated on its own merits, but we’re gonna go ahead and try to tar the policy with badness of the proposers anyway. It’s not right, and it’s not fair, but there you go. Tough toenails for you.”
Well, gee-whillikers. I’m old enough to know that life isn’t fair and that politics is frequently dishonest. If you want to readily admit that this tactic is dishonest, then fine, I’ve made my case and I’m happy.
Oh, and one last note, Mandelstam: the quote tag. Learn it, use it, love it.
And now I see Ace_Face has beaten me to the Krugman link. Damn.