How is that bush justice department coming along with the prosecutions of the thieves that stole billions and fleeced shareholders out of their wealth? They put Arthur Andersen out of business - an conspirator but not the actual criminal - but, okay. How's Ken Lay doing these days? The victims, of course, were the middle class - the very group of people that the neo-confederates want eliminated anyway. And the beneficiaries of the Clinton economy were the middle class - which explains why the right hates clinton and his economy. The wealth really did trickle down.
TuWho, I said almost from the beginning that Lay would be nearly impossible to prosecute. Fastow is facing a life behind bars and is trying to work out a plea deal for his wife where he will testify againt SKilling. You two must be lousy lawyers if you are not aware of how difficult and time-consuming white collar prosecutions are.
And let me add, a life sentence for Skilling would be insane. He deserves to be bankrupted and serve 5-10 or so in a Federal Pen (unless he did stuff I'm unfamiliar with). Life is for violent criminals. But they refuse, steadfastly refuse, to take away the ill gotten gains. The message is loud and clear: CRIME PAYS.
JD, I agree..... but the laws are poorly written. IF they had done the same things now, the results would be different.
I agree with JD. Life in prison should only be for violent criminals. A limited prison term AND full confiscation of all their assets is more appropriate for dealing with white-collar crime. Hit 'em where it hurts the worst, in the wallet. As for Enron, folks I have yet to see any indication that any laws were broken. While we all may have a serious moral issue with what Lay and cronies did, technically, no laws were broken. IVV is correct when he says Lay would be virtually impossible to prosecute. Of course, it doesn't make what he did right, not by a longshot. Hopefully, we can change some laws to make sure this never happens again.
I can't agree with you there. Full confiscation of the loot is NOT sufficient- confiscation of all of their assets plus most of future earnings would be. And the sentence shouldn't be light, imo - just not heavy - 5 years or so. Not meaning to nitpick but it can't be a virtual even trade - there must be some price to be paid. And I think living a low middle class lifestyle the rest of his life is a penalty in accordance with the crime.
I was thinking about 5-20 year prison terms in increments according to the severity of the crime, but I disagree with confiscations of future earnings for the rest of their life, that is just draconian and un-American. Confiscation of what they stole plus a hefty fine that would take them several years (but probably not a lifetime) to pay off would be enough for me. But you are right. We have to make the penalty for white-collar crimes severe enough until we get to a day when every corporation in America understands it just ain't worth it- the price is too high.
Since I am not an attorney I couldn't say for sure whether Ken Lay and Fastow and the rest of the Enron bunch actually violated any laws or just cleverly skirted the boundries of the law That will be determined in court in a few years. Either way they screwed a lot of the little guys who lost their jobs, pensions, stock options and their 401 Ks are now worthless If I was a judge I would sentence them to live in a trailer park for 10 years and work at menial jobs for the duration of their sentences. I saw a movie a while back (I think it was called "The Landlord" but I'm not sure) where Joe Pesci was the slumlord owner a a rat infested tenement and the judge sentenced him to live in his own building. Even if the Enron Boys are convicted they will do a few months in some white collar prison where they can work on their golf or tennis game when they are not writing their books that some publisher will pay them a big advance for. In the 80's Michael Milliken and Ivan Boesky did a little prison time for manipulating the junk bond market. They both paid fines of about a half a billion but for them that money meant about as much as the price of a cold beer means to me Ken Lay owns an apartment that he paid $7 million dollars for. Next time I go to Houston I am going to try to see if I can get in for a tour. I have been inside private homes worth over a million and I can't imagine what a $7,000,000 apartment would be like. I have nothing against anybody making as much money as they can and spending it however they choose but when the bigwigs are selling their stock as fast as they can and telling the mid to low level employees to buy more that pissses me off. Edwin Edwards might have made a bundle off some shady deals but at least he never fucked over the little guys
