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Enron's Kenneth Lay Dies

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-sarbox dept.

Don420 writes "This morning the biggest corporate criminal in modern history, Kenneth Lay, died of a massive coronary before he could receive his sentence. Lay was found guilty of being in charge of the scheme that had many lose their live-savings through a scheme of complex offshore holdings and is to thank for our having to live with Sarbanes-Oxely." From the article: "Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 after investigators found it had used partnerships to conceal more than $1 billion in debt and inflate profits. Enron's downfall cost 4,000 employees their jobs and many of them their life savings, and led to billions of dollars of losses for investors."

6 of 868 comments (clear)

  1. Do you remember brownouts? by myth_of_sisyphus · · Score: 5, Informative

    At the end of the dotcom bubble I was working in downtown San Francisco. We used to have rolling blackouts and everybody would leave the building for a couple hours and enjoy themselves. Anyways, the servers weren't running and nobody was making money (except for the CEOs, they always make money.)

    I asked my brother, an electrician at a Bay Area biotech, what the hell was going on and he didn't know.

    It turns out that this fucking company Enron was turning off power-plants willy-nilly so they could profit off the spike in energy consumption somehow. So, while hospitals and grandma Millie are sitting in the dark these jackasses in Texas are laughing their asses off all the way to the bank.

    It also turns out that our pussy governor could have sent the National Guard to ONE fucking powerplant and took it over. When the assholes from Enron call to take it offline they would pick up the phone: "could you turn the power off so we can spike the grid and make a lot of money?" "Uhhhh, this is Col. Soandso of the California National Guard. Who's this?" "Nevermind..." hangup. (Enron stops shenanigans.)

    Oh well, Ken Lay, may you rot in the eighth circle of Dante's Hell: reserved for those guilty of deliberate fraudulent evil.

    1. Re:Do you remember brownouts? by calstraycat · · Score: 5, Informative

      Anyway, the main reason for those California blackouts was poor public policy: Holding residential rates constant while forcing companies to buy power on the spot market, often selling power at a loss. Meanwhile prohibiting building new power plants to satisfy the environmental lobby.

      How did this steaming pile of lies and deflection of true responsibility get moded to 5?

      The "it's the environmentalists fault" explanation has been completely discredited. The state has more than enough capacity. Enron and other energy-related concerns were deliberately shutting down generating plants to create a phony energy shortage.

      But, go ahead and continue to spread the lies. Given the moderation you received, many still want to believe that fault lies with it's those damned tree huggin' hippies rather than criminals like Lay.

  2. Re:I won't believe it.... by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Informative

    And even then, do not believe it. It is fairly easy to substitue another body with a little bit of makeup. If you really wish to know, then you only have one way to know; DNA.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  3. Re:Ding dong, the witch is dead by Yekrats · · Score: 5, Informative
    Where did it all go, friend?

    Well, I know you will be shocked (SHOCKED!) to find out that a good chunk of dough (to the tune of several hundred-thousand dollars) went to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.
    --
    Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
  4. Re:Doubt it's faked... by Bastian · · Score: 4, Informative

    I doubt it was cholesterol either... as he would have been on any medication around to stop that.

    It seems to me that you're suggesting that people who are on cholesterol medication never die of coronary heart disease. Really, they only lower the mortality rate by about 10%, making them less effective than a good cholesterol reduction diet. Of course, neither is a magic bullet - he could have been on Lipitor and eating Ornish and he'd still be under a high risk of dying from heart disease if he already had off-the-wall cholesterol levels.

  5. Won't someone please think of the children? by Khammurabi · · Score: 4, Informative
    Good Riddance.
    Um, does anyone know whether the gov't seized all his assets before he croaked? Because if they didn't, his heirs might just try to take what's left "while the body's still warm". I haven't heard of passing a sentence on a dead body before, but I'm sure there's a legal battle in there somewhere that lawyers are chomping at the bit to get in on.

    I'd hate for "Kenny-Boy" to get the last laugh on America, you know, by dying early.