Ken Lay On His Show Trial
As an interesting follow up to Bill Anderson and Candice Jackson's Mises Daily Article "Is Ken Lay A Criminal?" we have Ken Lay himself saying essentially the same thing in the Washington Post. He admits that things went terribly wrong at Enron but he claims that he did nothing criminal, (if mistakes in business are criminalized then the free market is over). He asks, "Could it be that my indictment -- curiously issued two weeks before the Democratic National Convention -- is largely political?" He argues that "The legal case against me, standing alone, is a flimsy, hollow shell and reeks of politics." Good for him!
Comments (4)
The nerve! Of this greedy capitalist pig to stand up for himself!
In all seriousness, if he did not know of the accounting mess that was going on in Enron, he should not be punished.
Published: September 1, 2004 10:17 PM
Not even the most corrupt "corporate kingpin" can match the federal government’s achievements in financial dishonesty and bookkeeping fraud.
‘‘If you’re a CEO and you think you can fudge the books in order to make yourself look better, we’re going to find you, we’re going to arrest you, and we’re going to hold you to account," blustered President Bush shortly before signing the recently enacted "corporate reform" measure. The purpose of that law was to say "loud and clear to corporate America, we expect you to be responsible … with the people’s money."
Since Mr. Bush professes to read the Bible every day, and has publicly described Jesus of Nazareth as his favorite "philosopher," he’s probably familiar with the following proverb: "… how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye...." (Matthew 7:4-5).
The stunning hypocrisy of Mr. Bush’s pious pronouncements about "corporate integrity" is underscored by his use of the Marxist expression "the people’s money" to describe private investments, rather than money seized from Americans through taxes. If federal officials charged with handling "the people’s money" were subject to the same criminal sanctions used to threaten corporate leaders, the president and many members of Congress would spend decades looking at striped sunlight.
The sole legitimate purpose of government is to protect the rights and property of the law-abiding population that creates that government. This role includes punishing theft committed through force and fraud. In this regard there is a sound case for criminal prosecution of corporate leaders who knowingly defraud shareholders. But in managing the public purse, the federal government almost exclusively uses force and fraud: The feds collect taxes through force, and fraud is woven deeply into the fabric of the federal government’s accounting system.
President Bush and politicians on both sides of the narrow partisan divide have expressed theatrical outrage over the dubious accounting methods practiced by the likes of WorldCom, Enron, and other firms that "cooked the books" to make themselves look more profitable to investors. But the federal government could be considered the Wolfgang Puck of book-cookers. Corporate leaders confront both bankruptcy and prison once their fraud is detected, but the political class is happily immune to such sanctions: Government, unlike private business, cannot go out of business, and those at the top can distort the law to protect themselves from the consequences of their criminal fraud.
The full article is below:
Mishandling "The People's Money"
by William Norman Grigg(Link)
Published: September 1, 2004 11:09 PM
Yes, Ken Lay is a crimminal. I was cheating with the books ever since the merger that created Enron.
The Government gets away with finacial cheating all the time. The top 0.5%-1% of the rich people in USA control the government.
Published: September 6, 2004 12:54 AM
As it happens, I DO know of an instance where corporate fraud is happening at this moment. I believe that I can prove that this is so. Although I have put many hours into working on the situation, I can find no Government bureau who is in the LEAST interested. The SEC does not even bother to answer me. I do not find that the SEC, FBI etc., etc, are at all diligent in enforcing antifraud law--at least, not in situations that merely involve fraud, and not political correctness/incorrectness. LOL! maybe I should write directly to President Bush! (I am open to any advice from anyone reading this).
Published: September 6, 2004 1:22 PM