As a former PGE employee during the Enron takeover, today's verdict brought me some special glee. But, as a criminal law attorney now, I find it sad that these men swindled many more people, and many more dollars, than the worst burglars in the system, yet I'm sure they will spend their time in minimum security, maintaining off-shore acounts for their families. That's even assuming W doesn't pardon them in his final days. But, I have some small hope for the system today.

Now someone bring me Joe Nacchio's head on a plate and we'll be about done with this whole thing.

I would even argue that these guys get a sentence from the judge, worse than that given to serial killers. Why? These snakes affected the lives of MILLIONS. They're like economic terroists.

er, meant "terrorists"

Me, I believe Lay when he says he honestly didn't know. But the problem is he should've known. And that's why he got hammered. And I understand that interviews with the jurors confirms that.

His behavior on the stand made it look as though he probably did know, and thought he was going to bully his way out of this, like every other tough spot in his life. Enjoy Danbury prison, creep. Don't forget to send love letters to W.

A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. A corporate criminal who testifies about himself has a fool on the witness stand.

I was listening to the PBS News hour and the ethics professor from Yale, made reference to the

"Sergant Schutz" defense Lay gave of "I know nothing , nothing" from the old Hogan's Heros show for those of you under 50.

He said this was a legal precedent that as Rusty said the jury at least felt he should have known, and so was therefore held accountable, and the usual smokescreen of having the usual suspects as board memebers, etc, no longer was enough to protect a CEO from legal action, he had to take initative to know what was going on and responsibility for it.

That was the most refreshing thing to hear, hopefully the same precedent will hold when Jack's "Buckled up" Portland survives the conditions after UR bond repayments, TIF, and PERS benefits choke the cash flow needed to operate city schools and basic government services.

The Sergant Schultz defense will hopefully not fool folks when they are called to task for the millions that various folks have documented in this blog.

I think the difference was the legal process in this case. Listening to the goverment's investigator on the same PBS news report, it took thousands of hours and probably millions of dollars, to break the case down into a lesson format the jury of ordinary people could understand and pass judgement on. Adam Davis in his City Club speech, threw out an awful statistic of how many people in Oregon didn't even realize we had two US Senators, let alone name who they were.

If Ken Lay was the Pied Piper of Profit playing a tune that everybody wanted to hear, magical profits from group stock speculation (pushed forward 110 percent via public employee pension money managed by State Treasurer's across the country), does that absolve the army of professionals that knowingly turned a blind eye to the bold, and very transparent, lies on the real "fair market value?"

How transparent must the lies be before the investors themselves, at least the public ones, be held accountable for participation in the game?

When the AG sues Enron, or an insurance company that engaged in price fixing, while the trust fund managers for the state had themselves been investors, and long time beneficiaries, of the games is this just a cover your as_s kind of thing? I would rather have seen the AG sue Enron on behalf of the class of all Oregonians who had held Enron stock rather than just on behalf of the state via their own more direct investments. This difference in designation of class membership is to me quite telling of the focus of AG's interests.

The systemic failure of the system, as to the public investors, remains rather dysfunctional. We even take at face value, today, the now-known-to-be-too-high Enron stock valuations for calculation of supposed determination of "liability" to issue bonds to . . . by more stocks and private equities.

Fifty State Treasurers should follow Mr. Lay into the abyss. Ask who it was/is that was/is the primary investor for TPG in their recent PGE episode? It is/was public employee pension funds across the country. The system is not made better merely by Mr. Lay himself getting some time in the big house, as it has survived quite unscathed . . . through deflection.

Let's talk up the big talk of "reform" in the context of full funding, to buy stocks/equities, of the prospective obligation to make payments to Portland's safety workers. It is criminal, in my book, not to couple a final release of all further obligations to the safety worker pension beneficiaries for any effort to issue bonds to buy stocks. Let the beneficiaries buy their own Enron stock if they choose, from their final "settlement" for pay (past and future) for all past work. But 8 percent return is like money in the bank, you know, the same old tune.

It's just going to get worse... entrenched blue-chip companies will become more volatile than shareholders are used to seeing. Our country and our world are simply changing faster than our society or economy can adjust. With the wealth of insider information at the top of these blue-chips, more folks are going to play roulette with our money...

Ron makes a very good point. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the room makes it pretty clear that a whole lot of people had to know what was going on. In the end some beat reporter (I think she worked for Forbes or Fortune, I can't remmeber for sure) figured out that the numbers didn't make sense. If she with very little access to Enron info could figure it out how could all the so called "analysts" who were making multi-million dollar investments in Enron not?

I think the punnishment for these guys should be for starters, to be totally stripped of their wealth...NO off shore accounts or switching assests to others.
They should be placed in a 1/2 way house that is really the equivilent of FEMA trailer and made to to service work like picking up trash, serving meals to the folks who are made homless from natural disasters, fighting forest, fires, clearing roads or planting trees...for 30 years or so. No getting out and teaching school like Michael Millken either.
Jail is too good for them, and too expensive for the taxpayers!I say make them work for their bread and water.

Just as well we don't have the vengeful in charge of sentencing.

If she with very little access to Enron info could figure it out how could all the so called "analysts" who were making multi-million dollar investments in Enron not?

Because she didn't stand to earn money if those false figures were believed by everyone else. The analysts were essentially participating in a ponzi scheme, and they were only interested in the immediate returns, not the long-term truth.

Seems like one lesson from the Lay and Scrushy prosecutions is that if you're going to work a corporate fruad, better spread the loot real thick in the venue where you'll be prosecuted.

Dave,

Exactly, that was the unstated conclusion I was leaving hanging!

They go to prison for life. Done deal, now forget'about'em.

And remember the 50 State Treasurers in criminal conspiracy with Enron terrorfraud. Start those trials.

Remember PGE is equally guilty. Start the criminal trials. PGE poobahs, listen up: You are going to prison for life. Your spouses and children are forever blackballed. Wither to nothing, and fly away in a puff of wind. Your lives are worthless being blood related to PGE's crimes against America. Too bad the PGE paycheck-casher in your family spent your life. You don't get one now, your parent took yours. Taking names, those families ostracized into extinction.

Hey, maybe you can legally change your PGE-family black name, and hide your shame and lie who you are, until you waste away your entire life and have lived for nothing except a couple years of really rich rich living on your thief's stolen money while widows and motherless children starved in squalor on your street hearing you laughing at them 'get a job.'

Remember The Oregonian newspaper, Fred Stickel and his family and relatives especially, loved Enron, harbored and hid the mass crimes of Ken Lay, took the illegal stock dividend money money money to be rich rich rich and let the PGE-devastated lives go to the gutter shouting get out of our beautiful Portland city until you are rich stealing the public treasure and can chip in building a lovely ice skating rink for romantic midwinter night skating standing on top of the memorials to the dearly loved and departed souls asking respect of their bricks in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Forget Lay. Turn our backs on his co-criminals and their black hearts and loser lives. Boycott the newspaper into bankruptcy. Then laugh at them in poverty, greed perverts and morally depraved, begging on the sidewalks. Hey, remember your bogus pious priests are supposed to take you in, feed the starving, shelter the homeless, comfort the afflicted ... only no screaming from their piercing pain rammed rammed rammed rammed rammed down your throat and up your naughty dirty dirty.

The PGE Rose PGE Festival PGE Parade is the shame of Portland. And goes, after our family's twenty-five years perfect attendance, civic participation this year without me or any person of decency anywhere near it.

Remember all the liars lying to us to cover-up the thirty pieces of silver in their purse from Ken Lay and PGE pukes. Say, aren't they the same people remembered at NW Natural Gas ....

Yeah, on the PGE front, interesting to find that, SURPRISE! Peggy Fowler cashed in since the stock became publicly traded. I wonder if this is why she fought tooth and nail to avoid public ownership of the utility. And yet the media and bloggers bashed Sten for even trying to follow the money.

Is it too much to ask that profit not be built into utility rates?? Electricity is virtually a necessity, and the PUC can't be trusted to stave off opportunism. I can't wait until the day I can afford to get off the grid...

What's Peggy's husband, mr. fowler's? name? What's her kids's names? You don't have to say the answers here, simply pass it on, talking, emailing -- the list'll get around. The list is short, evil moneylust has few takers so stupid, the rich are a tiny tiny minority. Like PGE CheatEveryOregonian (CEO) people. That one family is rich rich richer than you, so they say you are a nothing, your children only cannon-fodder flesh-scraps, for their gelt-greedy war plans to murder humankind. Their money is thief money and blackens your hands and disgraces your life when you accept it for anything you have to sell them.
The rich rape goodpeople
http://dailybulletin.com/search/ci_3861257
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Is there hope or is there a massive crisis on the horizon, when credit implodes and millions of people can no longer keep up?

"That's a very good question," Bishop said. "I wish I knew the answer."

Weller, for one, is concerned.

"Greater debt levels are pushing families closer to the brink," he said. "If anything goes wrong, they fall faster through the cracks than in the past. America's middle class is drowning in debt because incomes have stagnated at a time when costs for important items -- education and homes among them --have risen sharply."

Jones says there are reasons for optimism.

"Younger people seem to be paying more attention," she said. "They've seen from their own parents that debt is the biggest stress there is -- nothing else is even close -- and they don't want to let it happen to them."

"They seem to have a much more realistic view about money. They don't seem to be buying all the toys."