The collapse of the energy provider Enron has left people in Washington scrambling to find someone to blame. But no one seems to know anything about the crisis, or better yet, what was happening before the complete collapse of the business.
No one knows anything about a multimillion dollar company going under. But isn’t it interesting that in 2001, those who ran the company, such as Enron President Ken Lay, began selling off company stock.
According to Newsweek, Lay told Commerce Secretary Donald Evans about the “impending drop in Enron’s credit rating.” But the White House, like Enron leaders, maintains they knew nothing of Enron’s troubles. Newsweek stated that White House officials “flatly deny that Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney (or any aides) had any direct knowledge of Enron’s predicament.”
The most disgusting part of this web of lies is that while all of our political leaders are busy dodging accusation bullets, the employees of Enron were not allowed to sell their company stock, unaware of even a whisper of the problems facing Enron.
But their leader, Lay, made millions selling off his shares before the crisis hit. And he doesn’t know anything about the collapse? It is possible for our leaders to lie. Lay is a perfect example. According to Newsweek, the insiders of Enron knew the company would fail, but they would not share that information with “outsiders.”
“Outsiders,” meaning their own employees? “Outsiders,” meaning the government of the United States, which has a vested interest in keeping our stock market up? Perhaps the outsiders are, in fact, the employees, because every time people from the Bush administration are questioned directly about their knowledge, they point to the guy next to them.
If anyone is allowed to plead innocent in this mess, it is the Enron employees who were expected to keep a 401(k) with stacks of Enron stock. The stipulation for having the 401(k) being they were not allowed to touch it for a certain amount of time so that when it came time for Enron’s stock to plummet, the employees were left with nothing.
Despite the fact he has been subpoenaed by Congress, Lay won’t testify. He is hiding behind his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. He claims he has nothing to hide, but if that is true, he would not be so reluctant to testify.
Now, Jeff Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, is dodging the spotlight by blaming Enron’s auditor, Arthur Andersen. Skilling claims he relied on Andersen’s advice. Overall, Skilling maintains he was “not a victim, but also not a perpetrator.”
That is what everyone has been saying. These Enron executives must start saying what happened, rather than paying high-priced lawyers who tell them to maintain their innocence.
The only person who has actually admitted to knowing something is Enron accountant Sherron Watkins. Every other Enron leader must follow her example and testify immediately.
Someone has got to know something because if they didn’t, no one would be in such a hurry to deny their involvement. Enron accountants are saying they had no knowledge of the books, Bush is saying he had no idea that his personal friend, Lay, or better known to him as “Kenny boy,” was even in trouble.
If they expect this argument to fly, we, the idiotic public, must accept that Enron only hired moronic accountants to sit in an office twiddling their thumbs all day and that our government doesn’t bother to check up on the largest companies in the nation.
It is time for the leaders of Enron to stand up and be counted. Someone knows how and why Enron collapsed and it is time for that information to become public.
While everyone who should be involved is making sure everyone knows that they aren’t involved, the employees lost money and the American people are losing faith in big business as well as a government who shies away from any type of scandal.