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Don't Forget "Kenny Boy"

Enron's Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were both found guilty today on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy. What a pity. Since this is ostensibly a political blog, I guess it's worth bringing up the political angle here—via Digby—namely, Lay's close ties with the president:

[T]he reality, as established by a wealth of historical record and recent disclosures, is that Lay and Enron were instrumental in Bush’s rise to power – and Bush played an important behind-the-scenes role in advancing Enron’s aggressive deregulation agenda, which helped the energy trader ascend to its lofty perch as the seventh-biggest U.S. company.

The Bush-Lay coziness earned the Enron chief a nickname from Bush as "Kenny Boy." But more importantly for Enron, Bush pitched in as governor and president whenever the energy trader wanted easier regulations within the U.S. or to have U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for loan guarantees or risk insurance for Enron's overseas ventures.

But for some reason, major media outlets were never much interested in this story. Can't imagine why it didn't get David Broder all hot and bothered...

Posted by Bradford Plumer on 05/25/06 at 11:08 AM | E-mail | Print | Digg this | de.licio.us



Comments

Perhaps it's not widely known: Kenny Boy is the largest career contributor to George W.'s campaigns.
Equally obscure: Enron, the Texas energy giant, was actually the planet's largest energy trader... It had a hand in virtually every economic sector, in virtually country, trading in natural gas, crude oil, metals, plastics, fertalizers, forest products, lumber and steel.
"Enron is a scandal in the United States now. But it has been a scandal in other countries for a long time," says David Puscas, a researcher with Canada's Polaris Institute.
In India Enron was a partner in a $2.9 billion power plant project so controversial that it spawned a protest movement strong enough to upset the balance of political power in the region.
In Mozambique, with the assistance of the US ambassador, Enron took control of an oil pipeline project, after the gov. caved under prssure from the IMF.
In Argentina Enron brought high-level political pressure down on the gov. until the corp. was granted approval to constuct a natural gas pipeline. The squeeze included a '88 call to a Cabinet minister from George W., son of then-Vice Pres. Bush, Sr.
According to Tony Benn, Britain's former minister of industry, "If you want to know where economic globalization along the lines cheered on by the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, George W. Bush and Tony Blair is headed, look at Enron. Globalization has created an international no man's land where businesses survive by engaging in financial practices that no responsible nation-state would permit. When you allow corporations to write their own rules in the global marketplace, which is what has essentially been the case in recent years, you will see unimaginable abuses."

Posted by: Michael L. Wagner on 05/25/06 at 1:09 PM

Yea, the real face of "Globalization" don't quite match up to the cute Coke commercials from the 80's back when the corporatist started the mainstream marketing of the “Global Community”. Read Julian Edney's treatise: "Greed"... kind of puts this epoch we are going through into perspective. Lets see if these guys actually get any time, I am thinking not. The conservatives constantly remind me that we are a nation of “Laws”, we shall see. Most of the time when you see law enforcement in this country it is applied to those who can not afford to protect them selves, basically those unequipped to deal with a powerful bureaucracy. The real criminals always seem to be at large, or get pardoned.

Posted by: Ben Merc on 05/25/06 at 7:43 PM

"The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the Common
But lets the greater felon loose
That steals the Common from the goose"

-- Anonymous response in 1764 to Sir Charles Pratt's fencing of common land (Thanks to US Fish and Wildlife Service for finding this!)

Posted by: Hoosiernan on 05/26/06 at 3:27 AM

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