Excuse me while I "arbitrage" the contents of your wallet. . .(Enron)

[Susan]

"He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.

As someone who distinctly remembers the rolling blackouts here in California, this made me very angry to say the least:

(warning, the language at these links isn't good, although most is bleeped out, but I'm saying this so I don't get banned or anything)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml

and

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/02/eveningnews/main620795.shtml


What's even worse is that due to the bankruptcy, we here in California are stuck with the bill for this fraud. Things could be worse though: if Enron hadn't gotten so greedy and fallen in on itself, Ken Lay *could* have had a cabinet post.

 

[opus_dei]

What's even worse is that due to the bankruptcy, we here in California are stuck with the bill for this fraud. Things could be worse though: if Enron hadn't gotten so greedy and fallen in on itself, Ken Lay *could* have had a cabinet post.

thank god you now have the governator. seems to me in the last week or two california's credit rating has been raised and it is poised to do so again in the next quarter or so. tax revenues are up etc etc.

btw, arbitrage is a perfectly legit business, just not when the folks doing it are as crooked as a country road.

 

[ZaraDurden]

The funny thing about Arhnold is that he was elected without an economic plan. When asked about his economic plan, he literally replied, "We will have one within 60 days of being in office."

If I lived in Cali, that would have been a priority on my list. But Cali appears to be doing OK despite voting on name alone.

Enron execs donated over 1 million dollars to the Bush campaign in 2000... I wonder why...

 

[jameseb]

Enron execs donated over 1 million dollars to the Bush campaign in 2000... I wonder why...

You really didn't want to go there.....

Why not asking Democrat senators Jean Carnahan, Max Baucus and Tim Johnson about those BIG Enron contributions to their campaigns? Or... how about Enron CEO Ken Lay personally contributing to both Clinton's campaigns for President, including Gore's 200 campaign vs. Bush?

If you're going to make it political.... make sure you play fair... oh, and I've only scratched the surface about money that Enron pumped into the Democratic Party..............................

 

[Алексей]

"They're f------g taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

"Yeah, now she wants her f------g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a------ for f------g $250 a megawatt hour."

And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.

"Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," says one trader.

"Ok."

"Do you know when you started over-scheduling load and making buckets of money on that?

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.

"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.

"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."

From: cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml