The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

Commentary on the Flux of Events

Mistakes were made department:

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the House energy and commerce investigations committee, said: "It is becoming clear to us that people at both Andersen and Enron tried to hide the company's financial problems. If that happened, there is a very good possibility that some crimes were committed. The deeper we dig, the uglier this gets."

He was speaking as it emerged that Kenneth Lay, the chairman and chief executive of Enron, was urging employees to buy more shares in the energy trading giant just two months before it collapsed into bankruptcy. In an online forum with employees on September 26, Lay told workers to "talk up the stock and talk positively about Enron to your family and friends".

It's reassuring to know that federal officials aren't deaf, dumb, and blind. Stay tuned now for the Ken Lay federal racketeering trail coming sometime in 2003.
As Robert Hunter at SmartMoney has pointed out: Enron's limited partners included the big hitters of Wall Street insiders -- JP Morgan, Merrill lynch, AON, Credit Suisse First Boston, Dresdner Bank and others. Yet, we're expected to believe that they had no inkling about the shenanigans in Enron's Ponzi network of 600-odd off-shore money-laundering subsidiaries.

"What's striking is how long Enron was able to get away with these transgressions without someone blowing the whistle. People at Wall Street's biggest firms had intimate knowledge of these dealings, yet no one said a word," says Hunter. "Wall Street can keep a secret far better than anyone could have imagined. How many other secrets is it keeping?"