www.metafilter.com/mefi/52773
The Jesse Helms (144 comments total) Thus another vile traitor escapes justice. I suppose this is marginally better than if he had been allowed to continue to enjoy his ill-gotten riches.
Think if old white men were treated like everyone else, my God nothing would get done and you'd have minorities in positions of power! From the documentary, "Smartest Guys in the Room", I actually felt pity for Ken Lay.
Then, the first line of the OP's NYT link has the word vacation home in it. I'm sure the investors he defrauded and the workers whose lives he ruined would love to die in a vacation home. To bad it (the cause of death) too quick for him to renounce his actions or show pity for the lives he ruined though. As it ends, he will have went out maintaining his innocence.
Aside from much-photographed walks to and from the courthouse, which spurred one angry onlooker to call the couple Barbie and Ken, Linda is perhaps most remembered in Houston for an ill-received appearance on the "Today" show in January 2002, weeks after Enron filed for bankruptcy and cut thousands of jobs. She cried as she told an interviewer that the couple had been wiped out financially. Later, her husband would testify that they were $250,000 in the hole. Four years after being "wiped out": Enron's founder and chairman, Kenneth L Lay, died of a heart attack at his vacation home in Colorado, according to his spokeswoman.
You just know there's a new dude in Placencia, Belize sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas with Whitey Bulger. And a cleaned-up homeless guy's carcass in an ornate casket in Colorado.
writes "his vacation home in Colorado" You don't know how wiped out a man can be in his vacation home in Colorado ; those bastards in mobile homes of redneck fame don't know.
The fact that Kenneth Lay died in a vacation home of a heart attack shows there is no justice in this world. Let me get this straight -- Ken Lay is better off now than in prison? You're acting like he's at Club Med, thumbing his nose at the justice system from the beach.
Now this is gonna sound strange from me because I'm all about rehabilitation and correctional facility reform... But when you're a dirty old stealing rich dude, I'm sorry, but being labelled "Guilty" and flying to your vacation home in Aspen is not justice. Losing all your posessions and spending 10 years in a cellblock reflecting on all the people you hurt would at least start to become something like that. I'll admit I can't find the strength or ability to turn the other cheek or not cast the first stone. At any point in his life he could have stood up and say "Hey, wait, I'm not going to be evil today", but he didn't have the ability to do that. I was hoping for some long time in a box to see if he could figure out a way to say that.
He was a horrible CEO, to be sure, but from what I read about the case, he inherited a really bad situation from Skilling and his real crime was not coming clean when he found out how fucked-up the company was. There was nothing he could have done to save the company by the time he was in charge.
Skilling's probably jealous of Lay's "easy" way out of prison time. Besides, how much money are we gonna save by not putting Lay in rich white man's prison for 20 years?
You just know there's a new dude in Placencia, Belize sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas with Whitey Bulger. And a cleaned-up homeless guy's carcass in an ornate casket in Colorado. posted by Mayor Curley at 9:45 AM CST on July 5 Glad I'm not the only one that sprung IMMEDIATELY to mind. I just said that a moment ago to a friend, even the part about the homeless guy.
And one new story reports that Colorado was the only place outside of Texas where he was allowed to travel. although relatively quick, a massive coronary isn't the most painless way to go. OT -- OTOH re: the dancing on Patty Ramsey's grave here -- Although that whole case remains suspicious, she was never tried let along convicted.
"An official at Enron said because of downsizing, there is no one at the company who could comment about the death." Couldn't they outsource that to a call center in India or something? A position like that is too important to just eliminate.
I'm not currently of the opinion that our country's judicial system works anyway. Even if he lived out his full term in prison, what would that have proven? Even if he did publically admit wrongdoing and remorse for his actions or inactions as CEO, how would that remedy the damage that had been done to countless employees and stockholders and the credibility of a once proud corporation? Had we drawn and quartered his body before death, it wouldn't have mattered. It won't stop others in the future from trying similar behavior. Lay's only true crime different from that of many others now in power, is that he got caught. If I could see evidence that rehabilitation worked, that punishment was a deterrent, I'd differ my opinion, but most if not all judicial reaction to criminal behavior is too little too late, and we can't do more than we do without risking punishing the innocent. This Enron fiasco is just the latest in a long line of examples proving that point.
Particularly, anyone with the required skills to "induce" a heart attack (or induce a press cover up to make it look like a cover up). Of course, I'm just being paranoid (but that's worked out pretty well for me in the past).
Fortunately there was someone qualified to comment on non-commenting however... Yeah, it's an oddly comical response - is there no one left who cares enough to come up with something or are they just gittin' at little publicity shy what with all the goin's on, the massive financial fraud 'n whatnot. I find it hard to believe there aren't non-downsized people still in that company who had something to do with enabling this fiasco.
That means we get to pick out some other asshole corporate CEO and just drill a high hard one at him. It may sound like a crazy reaction but I've developed a heart of stone.
Particularly, anyone with the required skills to "induce" a heart attack (or induce a press cover up to make it look like a cover up). There are plenty in the executive branch who have intimate connections with and have made great profits from the energy industry.
Yeah best not to rock the boat and you know, "stay the course" as these Texans (or wannabe Texans) like to say. Anyhow, no need to feel cheated folks, I'm sure he suffered plenty. I imagine it's not so easy to go from being a mega-rich CEO, venerated by everyone from the president down, to being the poster boy for corporate corruption.
But then there was an interview with him where made the point that it was really important for him to go out in public and eat in the same fancy restaurants he was used to (and that his former employees could never hope to afford, ever) because he was Kenny-boy Lay, dammit, friend of the president, master of industry, cock of the capitalistic walk, and he wasn't going to run and cower, no sir. And I thought to myself, this is pretty much the moral equivalent of OJ, except he screwed over thousands of people (including many elderly retirees who I can only assume had to get service jobs to make ends meet) whereas the Juice only murdered two. Sympathies for his family, and more importantly for those he helped to fuck over.
writes "He was a horrible CEO, to be sure, but from what I read about the case, he inherited a really bad situation from Skilling and his real crime was not coming clean when he found out how fucked-up the company was." I think you're giving him the benefit of the doubt in a huge way here. Lay was a founder of Enron, not some guy recruited from some other company to be CEO. What seems to be the case is that he was one of those country-club CEOs who isn't worried about the state of his company as long as the share price keeps him rich. If the problem was caused by Skilling, Lay should have been concerned enough about the real health of the company to look at things a little more closely. At some point a CEO should be expected to be aware enough to realize that the figures he sees simply don't make sense.
From all that I have...
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