Former Enron Executive Gets off Light

yeah, imagine working your whole life for a company, pension, retirement, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars saved up over a period of decades or many years and all of a sudden you are informed that all of it... is gone...

I'm sure a lot of people contemplated throwing themselves out a 50 story building window after that...

Ken Lay obviously realized the implications after suffering a lethal massive coronary heart attack after the trial.

Yeah. WorldCom is located here.

Truly a say example of our "system"

"Fastow and other greedy people who caused the collapse should be given longer sentences in a regular Texas prison."

Agreed. He should have gotten 6 years for each life he ruined and in a regular Texas prison.

i also think that they should have gotten a much longer sentence, but sometimes (as sad as it is), people don't get

Tom Skilling is a great WGN weather man, and his brother has also been indicted. Some even claim that Enron was connected (maybe in a peripheral way) to 9-11 (see NewsWithViews.com). The whole scandal or scandals show the great double standard with white vs. blue collar crime. Each citizen should be held fully accountable for his or her actions. It also points out why we need tax reform -- get rid of all the loopholes, and come up with a dramatically simplified (and lower rate) structure. And put these bums in the hooscow!

The REAL CROOKS got away as usual!

my client was Andersen at the time and I followed the case with a lot of interest and sympathy for the victims touched by what happened fromthe collapse of both companies. I read the book "Conspiracy of Fools" which I thought was detailed, horrifying and excellend and saw the documentary "Smartest Guys in the Room" which I thought was poorly done and reductive. But I was very far removed from what happened - which was more accurate or more compelling to the people who really lived through it?

I'm telling you man, once you become a large corporation where people are relying on you for their livelihoods, from beginning to end, if they don't already, every fortune five hundred should pay a percentage each, per month, towards a tax sheltered account that can't be touched by anybody, company side or government side, administrated from outside by a federally elected accounting firm that no one knows about except the Senate and House Judicial Committees (taking in mind that all present house and senate members need to be fired before November, except for Barak Obama and a couple of Republicans like McCaine or Warner), and when a company falls, for whatever reason, Everyone without a benefits package (e.g. everyone other than upper management) is taken care of. Or even if they have one, scale it accordingly. Point is, if they make so much money anyhow, what's a per month percentage based on personnel (and you can get into deep parsing and qualifications) going to cost for a company that generates millions per hour or whatever time interval, but can sustain it. make it flexible as their earnings dip and rise and be fair, but then everyone is accountable to everyone. As they already pay enough taxes, just embed it in the outflow Uncle Sam ham fists at you anyways and no one will say anything. Call it Asshole Insurance.

Good article...was thinking you might hazard a guess as the Ken Lay's sudden death!

But the entire thing is a nightmare, imho. I know someone who's related to one of the miscreants and it's been a shattering experience for them as well. The whole sorry episode has scarred so many lives but I guess the smarties thought they'd never get caught. Such is hubris whether you invade a sovereign nation expecting gun barrel flowers or use creative accounting to feather your nests...it's all based on greed and a win-at-any-cost attitude.

This is such a tragedy for the innocent people involved, my heart goes out to those people.

Don't tell me you're surprised.

Just another example of our system letting criminals run the streets while innocent people are locked away in prisons every day.

I hate to say this, and I will be a little controversial here, but the people who lost everything did so for one reason. No it is not because the executives at Enron were greedy crooks. They are, and they deserve whatever they get for this. People lost their shirts because they chose to allow other people be in charge of their financial destiny.

Think about it for a moment before sending me hate mail. When you accept a regular paycheck, you sold control of your future to someone else. They believed the lie their company would take care of them instead of becoming self reliant. They accepted that their company can invest for them because they chose not to get the knowledge they needed to be successful investors.

They did not see the writing on the wall as the collapse began, and did not bail out. Instead they sank with the USS Enron.

Learn from their mistakes, create your own destiny, and develop the skills to keep your financial boat afloat.