Wednesday, December 19, 2012

What Really Happened At Enron?
21,000 jobs lost, pensions evaporated, and 180,000 investors bilked












From Two Small Gas Companies To A World Powerhouse
Enron's growth was spectacular





Ken Lay Was The Little Mench That Started It All
From a 1970 Federal regulator, to a a small oil company executive, to King of the world






Lay's Superstar - Jeffrey Skilling
Second in command




The  Real Criminals Were The Fastows
Lea and Andy





Andy And Lea Fastow Turned State Evidence
Two Krakow back alley swindlers, that played dumb










 
Who Really Is Responsible?
Just how does a $66 billion dollar swindle happen? Where were the auditors, the SEC, the financial staff, and the directors, the banks, the security houses?
Arthur Andersen was Enron's internal, and external auditor, was part of the fraud. The SEC never investigated any complaints, and the directors picked up fees, and stock options. What happened was, a little Mench named Tom Lay hired some slick Harvard MBAs, they  loaded the key spots with fellow con artists, and took everyone to the cleaners.

 





 




   
Enron

Enron, the 5th largest US company, was formed in 1986 when Ken Lay merged two small gas companies,  Internorth and Houston Natural Gas merged. The scheme starts in 1987, when a young Jewish financial wizard, Jeffrey Skilling, who was an Enron consultant approached Ken Lay with some hedging strategies, on gas contracts. In 1990, Lay hires Skilling as the CEO of Enron Finance Corp.
Next, Skilling hires Fastow as the financial officer for Enron. Fastow is basically a con artist, who was involved involved in the 1980's S & L collapse of First Continental. For the next 12 years, Skilling allows Fastow to infest Enron with his cronies. This group cooks the books, and the stock goes from $300 million to $65 billion.
   






   
Ken Lay
In the early 1970's he was a government bureaucrat, a federal  regulator, and in 1979 he becomes involved in Houston Natural Gas. In 1985 he merged Houston Natural Gas Co. with Nebraska-based Inter-North.
Lay earned $42.4 million in 1999. From 1989 to 2001, he liquidated more than $300 million in Enron stock. At the trial, Lay came across as a likeable little Mench, but all of Houston was ready to hang him, and his socialite wife.
Actualité juive insists that neither she nor her husband is Jewish, she was the yearly biggest donor of the Houston Holocaust Museum.
   





   
Jeffrey Skilling

Skilling, a Harvard MBA, worked at Enron in the mid-1980s, as a McKinsey consultant. In 1987, Skilling helped the company create a forward market in natural gas.  Enron hired him in 1990 and he soon refocused the company from hard assets, such as  pipelines and power plants, to a major player in financial contracts and derivatives. In 1996 Skilling becomes Enron's president, and sits  on the company's board of directors.
 In 1999, Enron launched EnronOnline, an Internet-based trading operation, which was used by virtually every energy company in the U.S. In February 2001, he was named officially named CEO.
As their scheme drew to a close, Skilling played the mental card, staging televised arguments, and literally attacking pedestrians. He claims he had a mental breakdown.





   
Andy Fastow
Fastow was a con man from the 1980 S&L crisis. His specialty was raising capital by selling notes backed by risky loans. He worked at the Continental Chicago bank, and grabbed millions. Skilling hired him in 1990 after Continental Illinois collapse, the largest U.S. bank failure of the mid-'80s S&L bust. Fastow was the man Skilling needed, and became known as "Skilling's fair-haired boy".
Beginning in 1993, Fastow created hundreds of "special-purpose entities" designed to transfer Enron's debt to an outside company, and get it off the books, without giving up control of the assets that stood behind the debt.
The Fastows drained untold sums, but like all con artists, they kept a low profile, living a modest lifestyle.
Once the company collapsed, and the authorities moved in, Fastow agreed to cooperate with authorities, he helped  in the prosecutions of other former Enron executives. Fastow, although convicted, remains out of prison until completion of the various prosecutions.
Fastow brought in at least six other people, some with working spouses, that help facilitate the swindle. He admits to making $42 million.
 
Micky Koppel
   





   
Lea Fastow
She was said to be involved in recruiting six other 'un-named insiders' that helped with the scheme.  On May 16 she was sentenced to a year at a federal prison, and a year at a half way house.
It is thought that the pair skimmed $250 million, which made a year in a country club jail a small price. Fastow and Lea (nee Weingarten), met at Tufts, and were soon married. The Weingaten family built a supermarket and real estate empire, and were notorious in Houston.
   





   
Arthur Anderson LLC - Enron's Accountants
Arthur Anderson was two companies, one was accounting, and the other consulting. In 1999 the partners decided to split the company, and the consulting part morphed into a new company called Accenture. After the Enron accounting debacle in 2001, the accounting part went under.
Next the NY partners decided to take Accenture public, but first drained all the cash. Today Accenture has a market value of $24 billion , and the partners still retain 35%.
It's based in Bermuda for income tax purposes, but  is headquartered in New York, and receives close to a billion dollars in US government contracts.
Morris Greene, CEO
 
   





   
Directors
Robert Belfer, and Rueben Lawrence, who were related, sat in the board, and owned at least 48% of the preferred stock. They owned Belco Petroleum, which merged with Enron in 1990.
   
  Rueben Lawrence
Robert Belfer
 
   





   
The Securities And Exchange Commission
Their job is to guard against stock market scams. After the fact, they charged employees Lebow, Cohen, Fastow, Skilling, Koenig, etc with fraud.
   





   
The Banks
Just the Export-Import bank alone lent Enron $650 million. Creditors, and liability holders, are in for tens of billions.
How does a bank lend $1 billion, without checking the solvency, unless it is a friendly deal?
 
   





   
The Security Houses
Firms like Merrill, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, were peddling this stock, but never took the time to see a total fraud it was. A few were indicted.
   





   
What Are The Total Losses?
   





 
Kids Die In Iraq For These Jackals
Swindles of this magnitude don't just happen without a lot of people being involved. A Mexican that steals a can of tuna from a 7/11 goes to jail for two years, but these 'Krakow Swindlers' who stole billions, won't even get their names in the newspapers.
Their little 'Hatchlings' will get that scholarship to Harvard. But, Sandy Dennison from Butte Montana, who joined the army for college tuition, is killed at a checkpoint, thanks to Tommy Frank, and his Israeli advisors.
 




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