Enron during the Clinton Administration

[Nie Trink Wasser]

No. If it will make you feel better, I'll go rate your "Suicide Bomber" thread over in Humor 5 stars.

It will make me feel better for you to find something better to do with your life.

 

[clk]

It will make me feel better for you to find something better to do with your life.

Damn! There goes another irony meter.

 

[Hexxenhammer]

It will make me feel better for you to find something better to do with your life.

Me too, but we play the hand we're dealt.

3 stars with 2 votes right now. Ha!

 

[Tricky]

in order to gain a complete understanding of the Enron scandal.

if we only deal with what happened while Bush was in office, it is irresponsible and ignorant.

I don't see many people here blaming Bush for the Enron scandal. It mostly happened before he got to office. It was the result of years of accounting tricks and shady deals. While it is true that Bush and Ken Lay were friends for many years and Enron was the biggest contributer to the Bush campaign, I don't think that in any way says that Bush was responsible for it. There are lots of places you could point fingers, including at Clinton and at Congress for allowing deregualtion, but in the end, the lions share of the blame goes completely to the Enron execs themselves. I doubt that Clinton or Bush or even Cheney (who still won't release the transcripts of his secret meetings) had any big secret knowledge of their accounting practices.

Living in Houston, we all thought that Enron was a model company. It was generous to its employees, a civic leader (our baseball park was named after them). Only during the California Energy Crisis did we get some hints that Enron might not be on the up and up. Only after the crash were we allowed to see the seamy underbelly of their business.

So many of us are a bit to blame for our complacency in thinking that "whatever is good for business is good for the country". That Clinton allowed a respected (at the time) company to do international business deals is not an indictment of him or of anyone. I've already admitted that Clinton was a money-grubbing kisser of the arses of big money.

What is important from a political standpoint is the question, "what has been done to prevent such crashes again?" Frankly, I can't see much of anything. Do you want to pin that on Clinton too?

 

[clk]

I don't see many people here blaming Bush for the Enron scandal. It mostly happened before he got to office. It was the result of years of accounting tricks and shady deals. While it is true that Bush and Ken Lay were friends for many years and Enron was the biggest contributer to the Bush campaign, I don't think that in any way says that Bush was responsible for it. There are lots of places you could point fingers, including at Clinton and at Congress for allowing deregualtion, but in the end, the lions share of the blame goes completely to the Enron execs themselves. I doubt that Clinton or Bush or even Cheney (who still won't release the transcripts of his secret meetings) had any big secret knowledge of their accounting practices.

Living in Houston, we all thought that Enron was a model company. It was generous to its employees, a civic leader (our baseball park was named after them). Only during the California Energy Crisis did we get some hints that Enron might not be on the up and up. Only after the crash were we allowed to see the seamy underbelly of their business.

So many of us are a bit to blame for our complacency in thinking that "whatever is good for business is good for the country". That Clinton allowed a respected (at the time) company to do international business deals is not an indictment of him or of anyone. I've already admitted that Clinton was a money-grubbing kisser of the arses of big money.

What is important from a political standpoint is the question, "what has been done to prevent such crashes again?" Frankly, I can't see much of anything. Do you want to pin that on Clinton too?

Those are good points, Tricky. I don't think Bush was responsible for the Enron mess, but I do blame him for not going after the executives. He has yet to say anything about Ken Lay and the meetings that they had with Enron.

 

[Mark]

all Im asking for is a description of deals Enron made with the Clinton Admin, please don't twist that beyond what Ive asked.

why is this such a difficult thing to ask of people here ?

Have you been hanging out with Genghis? You make more sense when you stick to Marilyn Manson, my friend.

 

[arcticpenguin]

I don't see many people here blaming Bush for the Enron scandal. It mostly happened before he got to office. It was the result of years of accounting tricks and shady deals. While it is true that Bush and Ken Lay were friends for many years and Enron was the biggest contributer to the Bush campaign, I don't think that in any way says that Bush was responsible for it. There are lots of places you could point fingers, including at Clinton and at Congress for allowing deregualtion, but in the end, the lions share of the blame goes completely to the Enron execs themselves. I doubt that Clinton or Bush or even Cheney (who still won't release the transcripts of his secret meetings) had any big secret knowledge of their accounting practices.

Again, how many of those execs are in prison, especially former CEOS 'kenny boy' Lay and Jeffrey whats-his-name?

Did the Clinton administration invite Enron to write their energy policy?

Also, when the Enron scandal first broke, Bush went to lengths to portray it as some sort of unfortunate natural disaster rather than as the result of fraud. Only when the outrageous scope of the scandal was made clear did he abandon this stance.

 

[Tricky]

While Dubya didn't cause the Enron crash, he was intimately familiar with the way they did business .

“His name was George Bush,” said Harken’s founder, Phil Kendrick. “That was worth the money they paid him.” Oil-field losses followed GeeDubya the way that cloud of dirt used to follow Pig Pen in “Peanuts.” By 1989 Harken was booking big losses but Daddy was president. In February 1990 the company’s CEO, Mikel Faulkner, warned board members that a failed deal the previous year left the company “with little cash flow flexibility.” In the months that followed, Harken’s memos and board minutes should have been written in red ink. So the management team devised a scheme to obscure these losses.

See if you can follow this bouncing ball. Harken masked its 1989 losses by selling 80 percent of a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, to a partnership of Harken insiders called International Marketing & Resources for $12 million. Of that sum, $11 million came from a note held by Harken. Aloha was a small chain of gas stations and convenience stores in Hawaii, originally started by J. Paul Getty and acquired by Harken in a package deal in 1986.


When Harken sold Aloha in 1989, here’s how it did the accounting. Since Harken carried an $11 million note on the $12 million sale, the only money it got up front was the first $1 million. But Harken booked $7.9 million, using the mark-to-market accounting that Enron made so fashionable in the late nineties. In January 1990, IMR in turn sold its stake in Aloha to a privately held company called Advance Petroleum Marketing, and the Harken loan was effectively transferred to Advance.

In brief, Harken insiders borrowed money from their own company to buy a subsidiary at an inflated price. Then they booked sales revenue that didn’t exist as profit. Then they got rid of the loan that had provided the revenue that never really existed. This is the kind of deal that made Enron famous. It allowed Harken to declare a modest loss of $3.3 million on its 1989 annual report, and as a result the company’s shareholders had no clue how bad things were. And we all thought the smart guys at Enron invented those clever transactions.

 

[repairman]

Enron was for all outward appearenses a very succesful energy company during the Clinton administration. It was not until things started coming appart that all the shaddy accounting practices were revieled. As long as I can remenber Presidents have always helped American buisnesses to secure lucrative contracts overseas. I don't see a problem with that unless they start a war in order to secure those contracts.

 

[Dancing David]

Dearest NTW,
if you wish to find dirt on the Clinton's ties to bussiness, it isn't in the energy sector. The deregulation of the banking industry and the consolodation of capital were more in Clinton's regime. Si I would look for ties to nation City and other banks that becanme absolutely huge during his administration.

As a point of oredre , did Bill have Enron come speak on energy policy. that is the Bush scandal, it's open ties to the energy industry.

The Clinton mess lies elsewhere, like the dot com boom and bust, the lack of capital investment, 'welfare reform'.

 

[corplinx]

Well, going for history would be difficult. My guess is you need facts on Enron's dealings with certain congressmen, Clinton, and Bush the former.

I do agree that we have a very incomplete picture of Enron's influence. However, as is the case their influence seems vastly overstated since they couldn't even get a bailout.

 

[corplinx]

The Clinton mess lies elsewhere, like the dot com boom and bust, the lack of capital investment, 'welfare reform'.

I think Clinton had very little to do with the dot boom. It was self perpetuating bubble of venture capital, stock ratings from people who don't understand technology, and momentum.

I think Clinton should be lauded for signing welfare reform, however imperfect it was. Progress isn't always about making the right decision the first time. Sometimes its about simply trying something different when the current system is broken.

 

[Crossbow]

I would like to remind everyone, that I posted the thread in order to research deals with Enron during the Clinton Admin.

If you're only interested in defending the Clinton Admin, please do not derail or hijack the post.

If you dont want to contribute, fine, but please be considerate of what I was hoping to accomplish with the post.

Ive seen so much about Enron ties to the Bush Admin and almost no reporting of Enron ties to Clinton....that is the point of this thread...please respect that.

So let me respectfully see if I have this straight: you would like to find out about the Clinton Administration dealt with Enron but you do not want anyone defending the Clinton Administration. On the other hand, I suppose that it is acceptable to attack the Clinton Administration since you did not post admonishments to this effect. Are these the ground rules you would like everyone to follow?

I do not know many of the details of these business dealings, but I will try again to give you some perspective.

During the Clinton Administration it seemed like Enron was about as good as a company got. The company officers were the cover stories of trade journals, they did news interviews, they donated money to charities, they always showed a healthy growth, they embraced new technology, and so on and so forth. In short, in many ways they seemed to be one of the best companies in the country so I am not surprised that the Clinton Administration helped them to secure overseas contracts. As I mentioned before, this is the sort of thing that presidents of the USA often do (does anyone else remember when the first Bush took a squad of American CEOs with him on a trip he made to Japan in order to discuss trade issues? Here's a hint: it was the trip where Bush vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister during a formal dinner that was held in his honor.).

If you want to find out more about how Enron operated then I suggest that you look at the book written by Wall Street Journal reporters Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller entitled 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America.

They were interviewed on the NPR Program Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?displayValue=day&todayDate=08/06/2003

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: Enron during the Clinton Administration

So, where we all the republican critics of Clinton administration dealings with Enron when they were going on? Could it be that this is mostly digging around in the past to try to invent a scandal that they wouldn't have cared about at the time? Naw, that couldn't be it. I'm sure YOU would never post blatantly partisan rhetoric just to troll.

Where were ANY critics before the machinations became public. The facts were not available so there was nothing to be critical about.

 

[Mark]

Re: Re: Re: Enron during the Clinton Administration

Where were ANY critics before the machinations became public. The facts were not available so there was nothing to be critical about.

Gotta correct you on that one. The story was reported back then as I recall, but it took a major back seat to titillating stories about BJs. Plus, it was a bipartisan scandal, and those have always had a strong tendency to get swept under the rug.

 

[Tricky]

There was a bit of a news blip back in 1998 when Enron, with the blessing of Bill Clinton, was beating up protesters at it's India power plant. Back then, we didn't worry so much about human rights in other countries.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border in India, police were beating the daylights out of protestors marching against Enron's power plant project at Dabhol, a deal so costly to India that in 1998 the Maharashtra State government voided the contract on grounds of bribery. Clinton felt India's pain... and sent in collection agents: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and former power industry exec, Clinton's energy secretary Hazel O'Leary. The ladies beat the daylights out of Indian officials in their diplomatic way, threatening the nation with economic strangulation if Enron didn't get its pound of flesh. The more Chivalrous Bush would never send a woman to do a man's job: In 2001, the threats were repeated to the Indian government by Vice President Dick Cheney.

 

[CapelDodger]

The article that head this thread is utter rubbish. Where in it are the "connections" with the Clinton Administration? They appear to be mostly about connections with the Chinese. What are these "sweet deals" that were done between Enron and Clinton? A US trade delegation was accompanied by Enron representatives - and how many others? This deal was assisted by the US diplomatic service - as were how many others?

The title of the piece is "Dirty Deals". Followed by nothing that connects Clinton and Enron. Just the government doing its ordinary job of promoting US business. How can anybody be in the slightest bit impressed? Or surprised: Clinton is history, but the VRWC still won't call the attack dogs off. The appropriate word, I think, is "vindictive".

How many prominent Republicans have sat on an Enron board and drawn fat salaries for nothing? And how many prominent Democrats? How much did Enron donate to Republicans and how much to Democrats? Is the author of this piece likely to address these questions? You know - investigative reporting? Rather than mendacious propaganda? I think not.

 

[RandFan]

I don't see many people here blaming Bush for the Enron scandal.

Well I've see a number who have. A quick search of Bush and Enron yelds 98 posts. I would suspect that one would find some critisism there. The truth is that this does not prove you wrong, I don't know how significant this is other than the fact that Bush and Enron have been talked about in the same posts at least 98 times.

It mostly happened before he got to office. It was the result of years of accounting tricks and shady deals. While it is true that Bush and Ken Lay were friends for many years and Enron was the biggest contributer to the Bush campaign, I don't think that in any way says that Bush was responsible for it. There are lots of places you could point fingers, including at Clinton and at Congress for allowing deregualtion, but in the end, the lions share of the blame goes completely to the Enron execs themselves. I doubt that Clinton or Bush or even Cheney (who still won't release the transcripts of his secret meetings) had any big secret knowledge of their accounting practices.