Jim writes:

> We will probably never know the
>  true story.  Sort of like the Enron fiasco...

Actually, you heard a good portion of it here first, on HP3000-L. I recently
reread what I wrote to the list on 26 Jul 2001, a month before Sherron
Watkins wrote her now famous letter to Kenneth Lay, describing Enron as a
criminal organization.

    http://raven.utc.edu/cgi-bin/WA.EXE?A2=ind0107D&L=hp3000-l&P=R12792

In that posting, I wrote, "While it would be completely unfair to say that
Enron created the deregulatory environment that they're now profiting from,
it is wholly justified to say that early on saw the opportunity that was
presenting itself to massively profit from it." In that, I was mistaken. It
has since become clear that Enron -- almost single-handedly -- created the
legislative energy deregulatory environment in the western states during all
of the 1990's by massively lubricating the political class with campaign
contributions, creating a climate that was very favorable for Enron.

However, I also wrote, "While the people at Enron describe themselves as
steely-eyed capitalists, most people who understand the situation would tend
to call them "major league a**holes," to use Cheney's elegant phrase." In
that, nothing's changed. Enron was a scam from top to bottom, and I have no
sympathy for those people who's retirement portfolios dropped from $2 million
to $20,000 in just a few months, simply because they should have known what
kind of criminal activity they were engaged in.

I also wrote: "However, the balkanization of the western grid is a way of
breaking Enron's grip on the market and the reason why Lay is upset. Enron's
one-year rise of
80 billion dollars in gross revenue may not last much longer. If you own
stock in Enron, it might well be a good time to sell. The western state
governments simply aren't going to allow what happened to California to
happen to them as well."

In that regard, it too might be a good time to sell your stock in Arthur
Andersen, or any of the Big 5 accounting firms. The upper-level management of
Arthur Andersen, despite their protestations, was more than implicitly
complicit in Enron's stock manipulation schemes.

Wirt Atmar

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