ENRON - energy policies by the folks who wrote the book

    12 January 2002

    A collapse with a rapacious and bitter human dimension, in which thousands of Enron employees, obliged to keep their pension funds in company stock, saw their retirement funds wiped out. Executives of the company cashed in shares and options to the tune of an alleged $1.1bn (£760m) in the 18 months before Enron filed for bankruptcy protection on 2 December last year. Nor was this decline and fall a tale of honest mistakes. Andersen, the firm of accountants that audited Enron's books, has already warned of "possible illegal acts" that might have contributed to the company's demise.

 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=114090#

    On Thursday, to universal astonishment, Andersen admitted that documents relating to the audit had been destroyed. In the accounting world, where records are everything, such behavior is unheard of. Only when it was too late did Andersen learn that billions of dollars of debt had been kept off Enron's books, hidden away in private partnerships set up by top executives. Not long ago Enron was one of the most admired US companies … vacuuming up 250 newly graduated MBAs from the country's top business schools every year … since 1990, Enron has made political contributions totaling almost $6m (£4.1m), including over $500,000 (£345,000) to George Bush Junior in his Texas campaigns and his 2000 White House run … contacts with the Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and with Don Evans, the Commerce Secretary, were more extensive then either has yet admitted. Even if no wrongdoing is established, the affair presents the Republicans just as Democrats like to portray them. A party in bed with big business, out of touch with ordinary people and indifferent to the concerns of the little man, who in this case has seen his retirement savings go up in smoke. This is something a President elected by a minority of the popular vote cannot ignore. Even a President wrapped in clouds of Afghan glory.

Rupert Cornwell in Washington w/edit by Woodstock Electronic Post 

    link above to full article