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Tools 11 Check your email 12 Helpdesk 13 Contact Us 14 RSS Feed 15 Site Tools 16 Site Map 17 Advanced Search Newspapers 18 Tribune-Review 19 Pgh. From Washington to Pittsburgh by way of New York City and Los Angeles with important detours to China, Japan, India, Mozambique, Croatia, England, Germany and elsewhere in the world, we have been watching and reading about the great fall of Enron. The Enron Corporation's 50-story building had always cast a shadow on Houston's South Street, and it glittered in the sunlight as Enron began to fall and stockholders scrambled to dump their shares. Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft's first-class job performance makes him the No. Enron, the Texas-based international energy giant now seeking escape from bankruptcy, faces huge problems with even attempting to put its mirror-like combine back together again. And, despite the "King's men" having help with the heavy lifting from the White House, Congress, the courts and hundreds of faceless bankers and bean counters, this Dumpty just won't fit together anymore. Even the new name of Dumpty reflects on a stricken giant. Shares valued at $90 each this August are selling for 10 to 26 cents. Dumpty Enron, facing losses worldwide that add up to more than $5 billion, now is a monster under stress - and it is a monster that is both shameless and insatiable. P Morgan, Chase and Citigroup) for what is called "debtor-in-possession" loans of more than $1 billion. This shows the truth behind the adage that if you owe a bank enough (Enron owes some $3 billion), you own the bank. The geniuses of the 21st-century marketplace will now learn a sobering and exceedingly painful truth. The kindly, gentle and truly awful socialist pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock, was effectively responsible for Dumpty Enron's collapse and for much else that is wrong with our Republic today. Because of the genial old doctor, generations of decent American babies developed into troll-like kids ready to stamp and scream until they got what they wanted. Undisciplined, and having forfeited love for abhorrence, they became gargoyle-like adults, liberally laced with Prozac, whose creed was, "If you get away with it, it's cool. The so-called "popular press," in its usual searches for the clay feet with which they invest every well-known person, will now try to link Enron's present woes to the White House. Too bad, guys, you should have started investigating Enron's ties (ties not links) in 1993 and onward to the sales team of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Ron Brown. Congress is to initiate hearings as to what went wrong with Enron. It's a safe bet to assume that a major part of the investigation will center on Enron's 5,000 Houston employees who may be jobless within a few days. Jobless and learning that their pension plan was based on company stock that has lost 99 percent of its value. As they live on their unemployment and Social Security pittances, these unfortunate thousands can think about how their employer and its accountants, Arthur Anderson (paid at $1 million a week), inflated profits on paper and scaled down the company's debts. To get away with that kind of "little illegality," a close-mouthed loyal staff is vital. Already prosecutors from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Houston are finding voluble and knowledgeable witnesses eager to cooperate. Subpoenas for individuals and records are now being served. Yet with so many politicians from both political parties being the recipients of Enron's political donations in both hard and soft money, objective justice may not be easy. Moreover, Enron was generous to the last cent of other people money! Its corporate leaders funded business schools and scholarships, and gave and gave to the United Way! Even Houston's giant sports arena, home to the Astros baseball team, carries the name "Enron Field," a little vanity that cost a mere $100 million for a 30-year deal. Enron had the best brains that money could buy, but gave the word "ethics" a whole new meaning. The cowboys of Dumpty Enron talked up a storm about ethics; Bill Clinton became president, the late, much loved and little lamented Ron Brown was Clinton's good friend and a power broker in the National Democratic Party. Ron Brown had a friend, a congressman from Houston, the late Mickey Leland, who died in 1989. Until his passing, Leland was a shining light in the Congressional Black Caucus and a dedicated socialist, who was one of the Institute for Policy Studies' delights. From 1984, when Enron was conceived, Brown and Leland were there snapping up unconsidered trifles of money for use in their campaigns against the free market. Ron Brown, Al Gore and Bill Clinton introduced Enron to market managers in Russia, China, Indonesia and India. In India, Enron quickly became involved in one of that country's most massive corruption investigations, contracts were canceled and Enron was out. On the other hand, Enron introduced the Clinton team to Lippo Industries and thence to China's People's Liberation Army (a wonderful source of political cash), to John Huang, another good provider and to nameless, numberless Arabs who never arrived with empty pockets. If we look at a list of those attending coffee klatches at the White House, we can learn why a storm of doubtful deals enabled Enron to quickly control one-quarter of the world's electricity and natural gas. The ever-so-greedy Dumpty moved in to water deals in Massachusetts and Europe, paper mills in Canada, gas pipe lines throughout the world, fiber optics, television, mutual funds and information gathering. Enron, with sales assistance from Tony Lake, then Clinton's national security adviser, persuaded the impoverished, war-torn country of Mozambique to sign a $770 million electric power contract. Mozambique signed because Tony's salesmanship was persuasive. In the days when Franjo Tudjman was Croatia's dictator and pretending to be both a reformed communist and best friend of America in the Balkans, poor Franjo had a problem. He and some of his very best friends were wanted as war criminals by the Hague's International Court of Justice. Sign up with us and we will use our gang in Washington to make sure you and your friends don't go to jail. Then the lid was off, his Croatian Democratic Union was defeated and the new boys in power in Zagreb could not believe how much of their budget went to pay the electricity bills from Enron. Under quiet pressure from the Croats, another deal was made and a couple of guys were charged as war criminals. Electricity costs went down (but not to the consumers) and as a part of the deal nobody talked, except about the wonderful vacations that they were enjoying in the Caribbean. The first: Beware of the Spock babies now that they are nearing retirement and losing whatever sense they had. The second: Investigators all, beware, as you look into the depths and shallows of Enron you may, if you are truly unlucky, find the truth. And, if you do, these truths won't make you free, just well informed. One department, identified by the usual alphabet soup of letters and much concerned with gathering and processing intelligence and information from all over the world, now finds itself in a building where, a few floors below its official quarters, there is a restaurant and bar. The deputy director of this government enterprise is a gentleman with a liver like the soles of an old boot. Throughout his vigils, colleagues from other agencies visit him with their reports and requests. Information is exchanged and even one or two job applicants have been interviewed. And, of course, every day and every hour, his flatterers and flunkies, who make sure that his check is paid, surround the deputy director. With cold weather forecast, the prospects of stories from warm, comfortable quarters, while appealing, are canceled out by a hereditary need for cups of strong tea! Reproduction or reuse prohibited without written consent from 43 PittsburghLIVE.
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