This White-Collar Crime Wave Can Be Stopped
Re “Enron Is But a Pebble in the Wave,” Commentary, Feb. 13: That “pebble in the wave” will be just the first sign of an impending avalanche if it doesn’t prompt some changes in the way the me-first American economy operates these days. If James Pinkerton is correct that “the future still belongs to market forces,” then we could all be in trouble.
What’s needed are: corporate boards and executives who will stand up to the investors who greenmail them into pursuing short-term profits at the expense of long-term growth and stability; institutional investors who stop acting like day traders in responding frantically to non-news; and CFOs who know that padding your bottom line with derivatives is a lot like expecting to win every time you walk into a Vegas casino.
And if the Bush people were playing footsie under the table with the Enron execs who perpetrated all these deceits on a selfish, gullible investing public, it makes a Republican like me want to explore alternatives.
Tom DeCair
Venice
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Pinkerton’s desperately comical defense of deregulation evokes an image of a vampire trying to claw the stake out of its own heart. Laissez faire government policies toward big business were resoundingly discredited during the Teddy Roosevelt administration and again in 1929 when rampant overspeculation helped trigger the Great Depression.
The Enron debacle is merely history, and human nature, repeating itself. Hopefully, the lesson has finally been learned this time. Deregulation is dead. And may it rot in hell where it belongs.
Don Lockman
North Hollywood
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Re “Lay’s Silence Draws Wrath From Senators,” Business, Feb. 13: It saddens me to know that the top Enron executives have not been arrested and placed in jail. Do we have no understanding of white-collar crime? In the aftermath of so many Americans’ ruined financial lives, we are subjected to watching these now-wealthy executives, with their bevy of attorneys, parade in front of Congress and plead the 5th Amendment--or ignorance.
At the same time we are also subjected to congressional grandstanding, with every member of the committee feeling entitled to time in the sun, even if it means compromising subsequent legal action. Why haven’t these executives been arrested? Punishment is their just reward and our only meaningful deterrent.
George W. Dreisbach III
Irvine
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A Feb. 13 letter from Roger J. Buffington attempts to taint both parties equally with the brush of the Enron scandal. He is way off base. Seventy-five percent of all Enron contributions went to the Republican Party.
Ken Lay was George W. Bush’s good friend and confidant. He and Enron contributed more than $700,000 to Bush’s political campaigns. The Bush administration is filled with ex-Enron employees and stockholders.
It’s obvious that the Bush energy policy was written by Enron executives. And for those who say it wasn’t, well, there is an easy way to find out. Let Vice President Cheney release all the notes of his energy policy meetings and let the public decide.
Joe Pearson
Venice
