Enron: Symbol of GOP Corruption

I always wondered exactly what Enron did and how it made its money.  I have a B.S. in marketing and have always followed the markets.  It was sort of inevitable I suppose because of my name.  Enron mystified me because I never got a handle on exactly what they did, it was all a bit mysterious.  We discovered it was all a bunch of smoke and mirrors of course.  Someone finally said abracadabra and it disappeared.  A lot of jobs, retirements, and pensions disappeared with the company.

Jeffrey Skilling, Enron's Chief Executive, was sentenced yesterday to over 24 years in prison for the massive fraud.  He remains unrepentant and without remorse.  His fortune will be split between his lawyers and victims.  Not so for the late Ken Lay.

Of course some folks (the conspiracy theorists among us) think he's alive and well and sitting on the beach on a remote Pacific island courtesy of his buddy George W. Bush.  I suspect God got his revenge on Lay.  Unfortunately the justice system didn't.  Lay's conviction was dismissed after he died.  Enron's victims got cheated again, this time by the Grim Reaper.

Enron was emblematic of the culture of corruption which has permeated the greedy, self centered Republican Party.  It was one of the first warning signs of impending doom.  With no ethics, no regard for either the law or common decency, the company and its people were only concerned with themselves and getting rich.  They manipulated the energy shortages in California with no regard for the effect it was having on people, especially senior citizens, and were gleefully rigging prices and creating shortages.

There has to be a special place in hell for the Ken Lays, Jeff Skillings and so forth.  Enron was tied closely to George Bush and Lay raised some very serious money for the President.   Let's remember this as we talk with voters these next two weeks.