Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Kenneth Lay is a Lying Bastard
Ken Lay was the CEO of Enron when they screwed their 4,000 employees out of their jobs and pensions by lying about their profits. He was on a 60 minutes interview a few days ago and I forgot to comment about this before.
He claims that the CFO, or whoever was in charge of the accounting for Enron, was the one who committed all of the fraud and that he had absolutely no knowledge of it. That is bullshit. One of two things is true here, neither one of which bears well on Kenny's standing.
1 - The Likely Explanation: The CFO committed the fraud with the complete knowledge of Ken and the entire board of directors. They lied not only about profits, but about complete deals that they had never even made. They invented businesses that they were doing and on top of that they were double and triple charging the people in California when they were in the midst of an energy crisis. This could not possibly happen without the CEO being aware.
2 - The "I'm Retarded" Defense: We are not talking about some peon stealing pens and staples here. If Ken had even the slightest grasp of his business model and what his company did, it should have been painfully obvious that widespread fraud was being perpetrated. For this to happen and for him not to notice is in many ways even worse than him condoning it.
This was not an isolated incident. This was not being committed by someone way down on the totem pole. This was not something that could be wiped off the books or made up for. The guy who you meet with every day to discuss the financials of your company is inventing deals and making your company look like the next Microsoft, when in actuality your company is hemorrhaging cash, and you have absolutely no idea? Not possible. I'm not buying it (even at $0.26 a share).
The crimes committed on your watch literally destroyed the people who had been loyal to your company for years on end and the best you can say is, "I'm sorry, I didn't know."? That's just not acceptable.
He claims that the CFO, or whoever was in charge of the accounting for Enron, was the one who committed all of the fraud and that he had absolutely no knowledge of it. That is bullshit. One of two things is true here, neither one of which bears well on Kenny's standing.
1 - The Likely Explanation: The CFO committed the fraud with the complete knowledge of Ken and the entire board of directors. They lied not only about profits, but about complete deals that they had never even made. They invented businesses that they were doing and on top of that they were double and triple charging the people in California when they were in the midst of an energy crisis. This could not possibly happen without the CEO being aware.
2 - The "I'm Retarded" Defense: We are not talking about some peon stealing pens and staples here. If Ken had even the slightest grasp of his business model and what his company did, it should have been painfully obvious that widespread fraud was being perpetrated. For this to happen and for him not to notice is in many ways even worse than him condoning it.
This was not an isolated incident. This was not being committed by someone way down on the totem pole. This was not something that could be wiped off the books or made up for. The guy who you meet with every day to discuss the financials of your company is inventing deals and making your company look like the next Microsoft, when in actuality your company is hemorrhaging cash, and you have absolutely no idea? Not possible. I'm not buying it (even at $0.26 a share).
The crimes committed on your watch literally destroyed the people who had been loyal to your company for years on end and the best you can say is, "I'm sorry, I didn't know."? That's just not acceptable.
# posted by ChuckJerry : 7/13/2005 02:55:00 PM
