and "Kenny Boy" Lay were convicted of defrauding Enron stockholders. But
what an odd choice of words. I suppose Joachim von Ribbentrop and Attila the
Hun could say the same thing, but fighting to stay out of jail is a small
imperial dream. Skilling and Lay did authorize blitzkrieg-worthy raids on
West Coast utilities, where Enron traders bragged about stealing from
"grandma Millie," and jamming their $250 a megawatt hour power "right up
her ass." And Enron did conquer the venerable Portland General utility, then
leave it a hollow shell-I met a woman who'd lost her entire retirement. So
maybe those were the fights Skilling referred to. But these opponents barely
put up a struggle.
Maybe Skilling was talking about political battles. Enron lobbied through
the laws that opened California up to utility deregulation, then gouged the
state's utilities for every possible cent, and sent them to edge of
bankruptcy. If low-income rate-payers couldn't afford the costs or social
needs went unmet because of the need for bailouts, that was someone else's
problem. Enron also served as George W. Bush's single largest donor, even
lending him their private plane to campaign in, and their accounting firm,
Arthur Andersen and their law firm, Vinson & Elkins, were close behind. In
return, Bush appoint the man Ken Lay recommended to head the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, replacing an earlier chairman who'd begun to question
Enron's financing schemes. When California officials pleaded for price caps
in the face of skyrocketing manipulated prices, the FERC and Bush enabled
Enron to make hundreds of millions of dollars more by refusing to help.
Enron also fought the good fight internationally. As described by Indian
novelist Arundhati Roy, Enron overcame massive popular opposition to build a
power plant in the State of Maharashtra, contributing endless dollars to
local officials until they finally agreed, and locking the province into a
$30 billion contract. When the plant went on line, the electricity, as
predicted by the critics, was so costly that the government decided it was
cheaper not to buy it, but to pay the mandatory fixed charges of $220
million a year to produce nothing.
I don't claim to know the soul of Skilling or Lay, or to understand how as
America was still mourning 9/11, these men who had more money then most of
us could ever imagine, rationalized pulling their stock out of the company
while destroying the futures of tens of thousands of employees and
stockholders. Enron was strong, Lay told his employees, at the time. If they
all persisted and stood together, he said, they'd prevail. So he advised
them not to sell what they had, but in fact to buy more, even as he dumped
millions of dollars of his own stock. Enron's employees then watched
helplessly as their future melted away.
this, as does Lay's sanctimonious talk of how "God, in fact, is in control
and indeed he does work all things for good for those who love the Lord."
It was all a grand game, like the games played by all those who wheel and
deal in the destiny of other people's lives. Lay and Skilling needed no
heroes. They made themselves their own Gods and worshipped their own soaring
ascent. The actual people whose worlds were shattered by Enron's legacy were
invisible and expendable.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A
Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award
for best social change book. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen:
Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org. To get his
articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line:
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