Slashdot Mirror
Enron's Kenneth Lay Dies
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."
Kenneth Lay tragically passes away due to a massive heart attack before he receives his sentence. Impeccable timing...
Two possible scenarios (in addition to the official version of events) come immediately to mind:
- or -
Either scenario seems equally likely, and much more likely than 'Ken keeled over because he couldn't keep his LDLs in check'.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
until I see a body. Just a little too convenient. /where the hell's my tinfoil hat?
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Ted Bundy was polite and charming too.
So, now everybody here who keeps saying "Ken Lay did blah blah blah and never faced any jail time" is actually right.
I hope BSD isn't really dying...
Do you have ESP?
Construction has begun at the Hope Memorial Cemetery to install new drainage tiles in anticipation of the 4,000+ people expected to arrive within the next week to piss on Mr. Lay's grave.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Ethical paragon Kenneth Lay was found dead in his Colorado home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to business culture. Truly an American icon.
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Interesting that any life insurance he held will still go to any named beneficiaries and cannot be tapped to help settle for any judgments/judgements against him.
So were Carlon Ponzi and Reed Slatkin. It's a common trait among perps in the con game.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sure, nobody just keels over and dies from a heart attack. That never happens. And anybody who talks about "stress factors" like being pilloried in front of millions of people or facing spending the rest of his life in prison, is just spreading misinformation. And if you mention the fact that he was in his 60s, you've just got your head up your ass.
I doubt it's faked.
I doubt it was the government, because they want to see him punished as a way of showing that they're "tackling" the problem.
I doubt it was cholesterol either... as he would have been on any medication around to stop that.
My bet is that facing a very probable "rest of your life in real actual PMITA prison" (A 20 year sentence would ahve effectively been life for a man of his age) the stress got him.
At least he saved us the tax dollars it would have cost to shelter and feed him.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Ted Bundy was polite and charming too.
..unless the polite charming people also have a lot of money
Well that does it! No more hanging around polite charming people for me. From now on I'm only going to associate with people that have demonic beady eyes and fresh blood dripping from their chin.
-
God for the win!!!
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Seriously, some days I just want to punch all the cryptoloons in the balls. And if they don't have balls, I'll graft donor balls onto them and punch those.
Damn, I need more vacation.
.. he saved the state some $ now that they don't have to warehouse him in jail.
I wonder how much that was...
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Sometimes, it's the rags-to-riches types who go to these extremes, because they're deluded by their own success into believing that they can pull off just about anything, and even in their darkest hour, they've got a plan for wriggling out and turning things around. I'm sure at some point in this whole saga, Lay and Skilling and the rest had a few moments of trepidation when they were crossing the legal line, but a few rationalizations later, they're off and running and all that is in the rearview mirror.
That hard-working, affable manner doesn't excuse their crimes in the least. Let 'em put those skills to work in federal, PMITA prison.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Well that does it! No more hanging around polite charming people for me. From now on I'm only going to associate with people that have demonic beady eyes and fresh blood dripping from their chin.
Hello new friend! Wanna go throw rocks at my neighors cat?
Sweet informative mod.
Dear God, for the sake of humanity, please take the rest of those corrupt Republican potato chips!
/sarcasm
PS. God, no need to worry about the Democratic corrupt. We recognize that red-state/blue-state is really the fight between good and evil, and, as such, in times of people losing their entire life's savings and others dying young, the most important thing is whether or not another state switches to my color. GO TEAM GO
OK, everybody knows they can do anything better than anyone else, and there is no real point to following rules created by others. But, in order to end the fighting and constant bickering, we put up with these little annoyances called rules, regulations, and laws. Given that they are silly and pointless, what Other Reasons could there be to not increase corporate financial accountability?
Seems to me anything that puts the CEO, COO, CFO and every other cheif of a company right in the line of fire for criminal and civil liability is a good thing. The Board Officers should be there too of course. To me, the CEO and Chairman are like the Captain of a ship or a Genereal on the battlefield. You Are in Charge and You Are Responsible. If you say the company is in XYZ condition, it damn well ought to be and if we can prove you lied about it, you go to prison. Youd don't get to hide by saying, "the underlings run the company and I don't have a clue". Nothing should be hidden from "conventional interpretation" by some warped usage of accounting and bookkeeping practices. If you want to create a high risk, closed box operation, there are legal ways to do that without hiding it from your investors.
Sunlight and visibility in all the operations should be normal operating procedure, not an inconvienience to be endured.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
In other words, total bullshit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Lay
"Lay worked in the early '70s as a federal energy regulator. He then became undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before he returned to the business world. He became an executive at Florida Gas. By the Reagan administration, when energy was deregulated, Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate by merging Houston Natural Gas Co. with Nebraska-based Inter-North to form Enron in 1985,
Lay was one of America's highest-paid CEOs, earning (for example) a $42.4 million compensation package in 1999.[1] Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock in September and October of 2001 as its price fell, while encouraging employees to buy more stock, telling them the company would rebound. Lay liquidated more than $300 million in Enron stock from 1989 to 2001, mostly in stock options."
Yeah, that's a real "built the company from nothing" story. Where's my rolleyes smiley?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
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.
The world may never know exactly how much Ken Lay was involved in the whole Enron fiasco. But although he probably wasn't nearly as devious and manipulative as CEO Jeff Skilling or CFO Andy Fastow, Ken Lay was still the captain of the ship and deserves much of the blame for Enron's collapse.
From what I've read of him, Ken had several flaws:
So although Ken may not have been the greedy manipulator that his underlings were, he reminds me a lot of a pleasant, but wimpy and passive dad who's let his children run wild with no discipline from their earliest days, then protests that he's not to blame when they turn into terrors 10-15 years later.
For a fascinating account of the rise and fall of Enron, I would highly recommend the book The Smartest Guys In the Room. You don't have to understand all the arcane ins-and-outs of accounting to follow the story, which really is pretty fascinating. (I believe there's a documentary movie based on the book as well...)
"He was pushed... They "Cliff Baxter'd" Kenny. You know Cliff, he's the guy who committed suicide with the wildly innacurate and seldom lethal shot cartridges, that also make it forensically challenging to plot ballistic trajectory.
Kenny-boy suggested the VP role for Cheney to the Shrub. He was part of the "energy taskforce" that they are so desparate to keep under wraps. Like Dr. Kelly... Like... The list is big and convenient.
Or did his poor heart break, because it was too good for this world? I don't think so!
Another crony about to sing like a Canary to cop a plea...
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Kenneth Lay:
Stop, traveller, and piss.
Hi. Respect is EARNED.
What value would respect have if it was given freely and equally regardless of what a person is or does? What would be the point. This man was a criminal, and through his direct actions and deceipt harmed thousands of lives. Why should anyone respect that?
Perhaps people should respect his family, but this man dug his grave years ago.
Oh my god, they killed Kenny!
It's never so bad that it can't get worse.
A guy eulogizes someone who he had a good deal of respect for and you piss on his grave.
Need anyone be reminded of the thousands of employees, shareholders and suppliers that the late Mr Lay metaphorically urinated, on as he profited from their misfortune? Who eulogizes for them?
May the Maths Be with you!
Second, I have never though of being the child as a preacher as a necessary asset. A preacher asks for money in the name of god, not for the value of a direct service or product. There was a time when this was ok, like for a King or a Lord or something, where the sefs starved while one sat in a guilded highrise. But America now mostly knows that work is what brings wealth, and there is no cosmic cash machine. However, if one is raised on the principle of entitlement, then one might do anything to insure that entitlement.
Third, independent persons with knowledge knew Enron was bad juju. I myself was told by those in the know to stay away. It was not just that Enron was encoraging staff to buy Enron stock, almost every company was guilty of that practice. It was not just that Enron was booking and paying commission on sales that generated not positive cashflow. Again, that was a standard dot com practice. Rather, it was the products made no sense and there was no core direction. As was suspected before the fact, and known after, the products were shills of productivity.
In the end Ken Lay was nothing special except for his cluelessness and lack of humility. Many people realized he was simply incompetent, and would have accepted a statement of responsibility and an apology. Rather, he his behind technicalities and avoided the responsiblities that were ultimately his as the head of the enterprise.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Breakfast served all day!
And how many people's lives did "Kenny-Boy" (GW Bush's nickname for him) destroy with his evil fun? How many people died of heat stroke because their manipulation of energy prices? How many committed suicide because their savingand retirement was wiped out?
He was evil. And the theft he committed was so senseless because he HAD millions, and wanted billions. This was not a man stealing to feed his family, this was an already rich man stealing and more importantly building a huge criminal enterprise and corrupting others to steal far more than any person could ever possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes.
He was an evil troll, and I think the possibility exists that his death was faked is credible. He hurt more Americans than Zarqawi, and an honest tally would likely show that he was responsible for more deaths. Pissing on his grave is the least of the insults he deserves. Until these bastards who steal billions actually face the death penalty "business ethics" will remain an oxymoron.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Did Kenny Boy show respect for people who lost their life savings? I am sure there were MANY people who died in similar fashion to Kenny Boy after realizing their life savings were gone. Did he show repect for them? As to their family, his wife KNEW his husband was a fraud and in trouble, did she show respect for others who can't afford to spend millions on their birthday party? Did he kids who financially benefitted GREATLY from their "good ol" dad, return some of their ill-gotten gains to those who lost everything? HELL NO!!! The world is a better place now that Kenny Boy is no longer with us. And if his greedy bastard family is upset about that, so WHAT???
What's Karma is when you have everything you worked your entire life to build destroyed before your eyes because you got greedy and stole a lot of people's money. Which was in the process when he died. I suspect that a large portion of the fortune he's leaving behind will go to the US Government instead of his surviving family.
Ken Lay fucked up the lives of a lot of people. Thousands of Enron ex-employees will not be able to retire thanks to his actions. I doubt those people will feel vindicated by his death. I suspect that there will be some very bitter Wal-mart greeters in the next 20 years. Even his heirs won't be on solid ground given the controversy over his fortune. I'd suggest striking his name from the history books except that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Dog is my co-pilot.
A person who puts all their money into one security isn't investing or saving, they're gambling.
So, when your company handles your 401(k) and your Employee Stock Purchase Program, then urges you by incentives to put more and more of your liquid capitol into the company's sinking stock...because it's such a good deal right now... whose fault is that?
If we're going to treat corporations as people in the eyes of the law, then we should have every right to take punitive action against the "person" who caused all the misery. Enron defrauded stockholders and customers - that means they lied about the actual worth of their stock and assets. Fuck the "should have known better" crowd.
When companies start telling employees to stay out of the ESPP because it's a bad deal, then you can talk about "they should have known better" - but most companies push their own stock on employees like day-old bread, and employees for the most part are content to sit there and lap it up. There's no time or much interest in "individual investing" when companies make it so easy these days.
Ken Lay was a piece of shit. I couldn't care less if he blew sunshine up the ass of people who worked around him to make them think he was a great guy. Personally, I'm deeply saddened that the thieving fuck won't rot in jail the rest of his life like he fucking deserves. Of course, a better sentence would have been to put him in a room for 30 minutes with all the people he fucked over but that's of no avail now either. If it were up to me, I'd open a monument on his grave that invites people to come piss on it.
:)
Oh, and anyone who respected Ken Lay deserves to get pissed on too.
*anxiously awaits to get modded down*
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
The Republicans are just more blatant about it
Blatant? How about a sitting senator that considers naming everything in West Virginia after himself to be his top priority? That, and having his friends in the road business pave it over with your tax dollars. That is pretty blatant... but it's not nearly as delicious as a congressman with $90,000 in his freezer. No, blatancy is not peculiar to one party or the other.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Fair enough I suppose. Let he who hath no sin cast the first stone and all that....
In the end, we judge others and actually judge ourselves. The former CEO of Enron was, understandably, a modern type of monster. You're hard-pressed to find much good to say about him other than, "he was human." But so is every death row inmate.
I find the older I get, the more careful I am in judging simply because I've been through a certain amount of crap and I also realize that, as my southern grandfather used to put it, "you gotta walk that lonesome valley.... You gotta walk it by yourself."
Lay emerged on the world scene like the rest of us, and like the rest of us he struggled to climb to the top. Along the way, as most of us do, he compromised. A time came when he compromised big, and then he kept on compromising until that little voice we all have simply wasn't there anymore. He had to know he was destroying lives as he built his personal pile.
I'm reminded of what the news paper tycoon said to the young Orson Wells as his life was ending in public shame, indebtedness and legal turmoil: "my fight with the world is ending. Yours is just beginning."
While the vitriol makes perfect sense right now, we just gotta be careful. We, too, will screw up either in a big or small way in this world. Hopefully, not that big. Still, the man is dead.
Frodo: "It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance."
Gandalf: "Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."
Let's have a smidgen of pity boys....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
He dies before sentencing, Now we have no yardstick for similar crooks in the future, no order of restitution to be paid. Inheritance gets whatever he had left + life insurance benefits (which I bet is a pretty good chunk of any state budget)
A Republican friend of mine mockingly said "How dare he die before we get a chance to punish him." What he say in jest, I say in earnest.
Personally, I would have liked to see him live a long, long, long life breaking rocks in the hot sun. Since he probably would have ended up at Club Fed, I hope it hurt a tenth as much as losing your retirement and life savings overnight.
As an Atheist, I get no satisfaction from him keeling over. I literally feel robbed, and I had no money in their company. The people who did probably feel robbed all over again.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Dude! You miss the point. That's called "trickle down economics."
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.
PUBLIC CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE!!!!11!!!!
Any metaphor drawn from that cloth is fundamentally flawed.
The "innocence" you say must be proved is, in reality, reports on how much money the corporation has/owes/and is owed. As these numbers HUGELY influence how real people invest their own money, it is requisite for our entire system of finance that these numbers be accurate and trusted.
SOX might be a bit onerous, but that's only because things had become so lax....and Lay was the perfect example of how they were so lax that CEO's could try and argue in court they had no idea how much the company has/owes/and is owed.
I'll not touch your liberaltarian ranting that follows...I hear they're infectious.
+&x
he Ken Lay memorial urinal has a nice ring to it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
After moving to a better hospital, his condition was upgraded to "alive".
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I'd hate for "Kenny-Boy" to get the last laugh on America, you know, by dying early.
Superman, is that you? You must have used your x-ray vision to look through the masks of the men in the video footage. Even if Zarqawi claimed responsibility, that's what? Two dead Americans? Versus how many thousands with ruined retirement accounts, millions of dollars lost? We have no way of knowing how many deaths, let alone injuries, Lay's activities caused.
c le/2006/06/09/AR2006060902040_2.html
I'd say it's a safe bet that he injured more than two Americans however. See, I live in California, and I personally have been injured by the actions of Enron, the company Lay oversaw.
Presumably, you have links from the AP regarding these AQ funded labs? I have this link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
which depicts Zarqawi as wanting to ally himself with AQ, but not being embraced by the terrorist organization's leadership. Furthermore, I have yet to find a mainstream media outlet which claims AQ was operating from Iraq before the war.
There is nothing absurd about calling Republicans traitors, it is indisputable: they seek to undermine the Constitution of the United States, and do not support the Constitution, the document upon which almost all of our laws depend. In so doing, they hope to destroy the United States, and are hence traitors, QED. There is nothing in the Constitution which allows violation of amendments one, five, or six, but there are the Republicans, supporting their violation each and every day.
Traitors all. To paraphrase the Traitor-in-Chief, "you're either with us, or you're with the Republicans."
You don't _have_ to be a traitor, you know. You can always read the Constitution, and educate yourself about this country's founding, and the ideals behind it.