Enron: v. (en’ron). To administer a reversal of fortune, especially through deceit or trickery, and administered for benefit at the expense of another, to take advantage of another, to cheat. See also: screw (4)
— Webster’s Dictionary, 2050.
It’s a story that seems like a throwback to the “greed is good” ’80s. The Houston-based energy re-seller Enron Corp. was once a
giant in its field. In August 2000, investors briskly traded shares of the company at a
respectable $90 each, and it looked like the sky was the limit for the firm. But after summer 2001, in which the firm possibly made a killing off the California energy crisis by manipulating
energy re-sales to the state for an immense profit, the company went into a nosedive.

In December, the ride was over for Ken Lay,
Enron chief executive officer. The company retreated behind Chapter 11 after the announcement that Enron used shady
accounting to make its fiscal reports look much, much, much better (around $586 million) than they actually were, setting a record for the largest bankruptcy filing in history.
But that, as they say, is not all, folks. It is
becoming more and more apparent that before scuttling the company, many of the top executives sensed the shifting winds and dumped onto the New York Stock Exchange billions of dollars worth of Enron stock that they held in options. By the time of its bankruptcy, the once robust $90 stock had
become worth less than a dollar. Because of this, entire retirements have been made worthless for the employees who invested in Enron-provided 401(k) plans — in effect buying Enron stock that would have become million-dollar nest eggs after leaving the company. It was through this insider trading that top executives, like CEO Lay, made off with astronomical sums like $217 million.
Insider trading, huh? Thought that went out with Ivan Boesky. It’s definitely time for the Securities and Exchange Commission — and others — to take a close look at these last-minute trades that netted the top Enron staff around a billion dollars. It’s obvious that the executives knew the company was going to collapse and tried to liquidate while the stock price was high. It’s illegal to act on a stock because of inside information. If they can prove that Lay or any of his cronies profited due to insider trading, it would not be too extreme to relieve them of their billion-dollar burden.
By the by, who’s going to look into the donations to certain politicians’ campaign
accounts mere days before Enron’s collapse?
Especially when these contributions rather conveniently included 91 percent (51 of 56) of the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; who would be in charge of investigating Enron? Now a majority of this committee has had to excuse themselves from the investigation.
It seems that everyone was asleep too long at the switch. For instance, Billy Tauzin,
R-La., now one of the most dogged on the heels of Enron, was also one of the biggest
recipients of donations from Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen. Looking back to previous years, we can see how this relationship worked. Tauzin, the Energy and Commerce Committee’s chairman, took $47,000 from the company, and in return, helped block regulations that may have prevented accounting companies from the kind of shady business that Arthur Andersen displayed in its work with Enron.
It also helps when influential senators’ wives are on the board of directors, as was the wife of Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Wendy. Guess who else isn’t investigating?