I now publish an email exchange between myself and Big today:
Sayeth me:
I had a brainstorm I need to bounce off you. Just hear me out.
Naysayers will say Enron was bad because the executives were dishonest. The fact that none of them benefited from their dishonesty is irrelevant. The fact is, they TRIED to benefit (out of greed) and thus, they’re bad.
Now. Take abortion doctors – a sacred cow of the Left. If an abortion doctor performs an illegal (late term) abortion, he is considered a hero, going against society’s prejudices to perform a necessary service. The fact that is always paid for this service is defended as “well we live in a capitalist society, so of course he needs to be paid.”
My point is that when professionals act outside the law (and I am not saying Enron execs did, but the perception is that they did), then whether we care or not depends not on the objective law but on our political viewpoint. So Enron is not a legal issue – it is a political one, even without bringing George Bush into the equation.
Is that solid?
Replyeth Big:
What you are saying is correct, but it weakens the argument about innocence. If the Enron execs broke the law, then they should be prosecuted, even if who gets prosecuted is politically motivated.
The problem is that “justice” is seldom blind, especially at the federal level. Politics, CYA, career goals, pandering to the public, etc. probably play a bigger role in who gets prosecuted than the nature of the alleged crimes themselves. Enron execs were an easy target (or so the Feds thought) because they assumed the public would support the prosecutions no matter how ridiculous they were. The Feds were right about the public, but mostly wrong about how easy it would be to get convictions. The people who fought the Feds mostly won in the end.
Big is right, of course. By arguing that other (or most or even all) professionals all do things that are not strictly kosher, I open myself to the argument that objectively Enron executives’ acts were still wrong (and I do not believe they were wrong.) If I can agree that for the sake of argument that they’re guilty, I think it requires the opponent to justify the bad acts of their favorite pets too. But I won’t concede, even for the sake of argument, that the Enron executives did anything wrong or illegal. I’d still like to hear them make their justifications. It would be amusing, if not enlightening.
My Opinion. Based on research, testimony and the facts I have looked into there were criminals at Enron. Andy Fastow and a few others did break the law. They did lie to Enron employees, management and the public.
They did lie to save themselves life in prison and Fastow did testify to convict Skilling and Lay. He did lie on the stand about their knowledge of the “Global Galactic List” and that did not come out until after trial when the 302 was released that showed he told the prosecution they did not know about the list.
Fastow is a crook, he is a liar and he did cause the downfall of Enron. He has never taken responsibility for his actions and never admitted he lied on the stand and did so under pressure from the DOJ. He needs to expose the DOJ if he ever wants to make any restitution.
This does not make all Enron employees or executives criminals. That is a myth. The things people say Enron did wrong are not the things the executives were charged with and not the things Skilling and Lay were convicted of by the jury prejudiced by the media.