Enron Scams & Politician Buying

Analysis of the Enron Scams
and Politician Purchasing
Editorial by Jeff Goolsby, Editor

      The unraveling of the Enron scams has really focused attention on con artistry used by some businesses and politician purchasing by some large corporations and some of the super rich. The Bush Administration is laced with Enron and Andersen people. Perhaps we should call it the Enron Administration instead of the Bush Administration. According to one news report Kenneth Lay, Enron CEO, interviewed some of Bush's candidates for appointments to the Bush Administration. This indicated that some candidates could not be appointed unless approved by Mr. Lay.
      According to news reports truth is stranger than fiction regarding Enron's creative accounting scams, natural gas and electricity deregulation scams, and phony financial statements for the stock market.
      News reports show that 188 U.S. Representatives and 71 U.S. Senators received campaign contributions from Kenneth Lay, Enron, and Andersen CPA's. Approximately 80% of the Enron-Andersen campaign contributions went toward buying Republicans and electing Republicans. Despite all of the huge profits Enron was claiming in 2000 plus the huge non deductible political contributions, Enron did not pay any income tax for the year 2000. If you own enough politicians, you can get away with most anything.
      Enron operatives were extremely active in promoting deregulation of natural gas and electricity on the Federal level and state by state basis. One of Enron's obvious scam objectives was to create a new industry of adding another layer of extra cost and profit on top of the regulated cost and profit of natural gas and electricity to rip off the public with unjustified profits.
      One news report stated that President Thief Bush lied about knowing Kenneth Lay until after he "obtained" the Texas Governor office. Further investigation proved that Bush and Kenneth Lay were intimately involved in Bush's political efforts long before Bush ran for Governor. News reports say that Lay contributed more than $600,000 to Bush's presidential campaign and his Florida vote stealing initiative. One Republican said that all is fair in war and politics and another one said that anything you do is OK if you get away with it. Wow, this religious hypocrisy has got to go.
      Enron set up the subsidiary NewPower Corporation to reap the intended huge profits from the extra cost and profit to be generated by the deregulation scam. The NewPower gas reseller office in Metro Atlanta is very active currently reaping huge profits over and above the cost and profits by Atlanta Gas Light Company. Atlanta Gas is still operating the gas delivery, maintenance, and meter reading. The only thing NewPower is doing is ordering the gas, mailing the gas bills to the victims based on Atlanta Gas meter readings, and collecting the doubled cost and profits.
      The gas has been turned off for thousands of Metro Atlanta citizens because they could not pay their doubled and tripled scam gas bills. The voters of Georgia should force their lawmakers to repeal the Georgia deregulation law and re-regulate natural gas at the price that existed before the deregulation scam. There was and is no shortage of natural gas and little or no justification for an actual retail price increase.
      The deregulation scam by Enron in California cost California citizens many millions of dollars and cost the Government of California several billion dollars. You may recall that Thief Bush condoned and endorsed the Enron electricity scam in California. Most likely Bush thought the Enron scam was enriching his political cronies and did not realize that Enron was about to implode due to their shenanigans and creative phony accounting. Now that Enron has been exposed, Bush is now being critical of Enron instead of admitting that he had been helping Enron politically.
      Wait a minute, Bush said he was going to bring honesty, morality, and ethics to Washington. I wonder how moral Bush was when he was boozing, snoozing, and cheating his way through his education process and while he was boozing and carousing until he was 40 years old. Or, did he really quit, or develop more skill at hiding his drinking at the age of 40. How about his mumbling and incoherent statements during most of his speeches after sundown since he stole the presidency.
      The gas and electricity deregulation scam must be repealed except when competing companies run their own supply lines and eliminate the piggyback double overhead and double profit markups. The double cost and double profit markup scam must be abolished. The politicians who rewarded Enron and others promoting the deregulation scam should explain and make amends to their voters and victims of the deregulation scam extra cost.
      Gas deregulation GALORE. I wonder how many politicians and public service commission members benefited similarly from the gas deregulation rip-offs that shot gas prices through the roof ripping off many millions of Americans, including thousands in Metro Atlanta who can not pay their doubled and tripled gas bills.
      It appears that Enron has been "printing money" by issuing stock for unrealistic rewards to themselves and cronies based on phony assets, phony liabilities, and phony profits. As an example, if they want to reward a crony, they might buy a property worth $50,000 and pay for it with 14,286 shares of Enron stock which was selling for $70 per share. The crony then sells the newly printed and unsupported stock for $1,000,000 to stock market investor victims. Then Enron increases their assets by $50,000 at no cost or liabilities. Also, observe the transaction to and by Lou L. Pai.
      According to news reports, before the debacle, Enron Insiders cashed in $1.1 Billion in Shares. In January 2000, just 60 days after the formation of NewPower (subsidiary of Enron), Lou L. Pai, NewPower President, (Enron Subsidiary) received more than five million Enron shares. Mr. Pai began to sell his newly acquired Enron shares almost immediately, mostly while they were trading above $70 per share, for $353.7 million dollars. Mr. Pai resigned shortly thereafter.
      Corporation stock should only be issued as an exchange for cash, property, or services, and the value of services should be legitimate and calculated on the same basis as if cash is being paid for the services.
      One news agency reported that one new car agency in Houston was selling 20 cars per week, valued at more than $100,000 each, to Enron executives and employees. There was a huge home building boom in extremely expensive homes in Houston. Many businesses in Houston were making huge profits from selling to Enron executives and employees before Enron imploded.
      Obviously, Enron was using unsupported corporate shares, excessive salaries, and huge political campaign contributions causing their losses and diluting the value of the corporation stock.
      The Enron political scandal combined with the rip-off of employee 401k retirement plans further document the reason that a major overhaul of campaign finance must take place immediately. The McCain-Feingold bill would be an improvement, but, the procedure I proposed in my ebook, How To RETIRE RICH It Easier Than You Think, at www.rojego.com is a much better way to resolve the problem of "Buying Politicians" at the expense of the public at large.
      Instead of representing us in Washington, officials elected to congress spend a large part of their time raising money and then have to enact laws that favor their large campaign contributors. If they do not enact laws favoring their large campaign contributors, they would lose them to their opposition candidates. However, Republicans do not have to spend as much time chasing campaign financing as Democrats because companies like Enron and Andersen chase them with big money.
      The chase for campaign funding has been rapidly getting worse. According to news reports, the campaign finance committees for the Republican and Democratic parties raised $487 million dollars for the year 2000 campaigns. According to John Lewis, U.S. Representative from Georgia, that was twice the amount raised in 1996 and six times the amount raised in 1992.
      We can not allow the popularity Bush has reaped because the military that President Clinton delivered to him has been doing a super fantastic job, to prevent straightening out the mess in Washington that the Enron scandal has exposed.