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(ABC) Obvious 10 Things We Didn't Learn From Enron Scandal. You can add these to the things we didn't learn all the scandals that came after. And to the ones that came before   (abcnews.go.com) divider line 77
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Saborlas [TotalFark]
2011-12-01 02:20:39 PM
11. Big businesses will screw EVERYONE in the name of short-term profits. Even their own long-term profits.

12. Trusting business to do the right thing without holding a gun to their heads is naive. We regulate for a reason.

13. We now have proof that Ayn Rand was WRONG.
 
vernonFL [TotalFark]
2011-12-01 02:31:30 PM
14. We need more rope, to hang people like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling up by their testicles.
 
vpb [TotalFark]
2011-12-01 03:10:27 PM
Fire makes a wonderful slave, but a terrible master. It is the same with greed.

If fire isn't regulated it burns down your house.

If greed isn't regulated it wipes out the economy, bails itself out with your money, causes you to be laid off and then repossesses your house.
 
Rik01 [TotalFark]
2011-12-01 03:49:45 PM
People don't frikkin' learn anything! ESPECIALLY in the corporate world.

Decisions made by high corporate officials affect the lives of millions and if they do so badly, they simply don't care. After all, they're living large and making major bucks, plus most have some plan stashed away in the background to fall back on and still be rich after they get caught.

'Just business' has become a phrase I despise.

It absolves corporate entities of stabbing friends and family in the backs for a buck, sickening or killing thousands of consumers, bankrupting thousands more and/or poisoning the environment for generations to come. Taking care of employees who take care of the company is no longer a good thing. Instead, you dump them as soon as they get too old to keep up, even if they were shining stars in their younger days and even if their wisdom is useful today. Cheat them out of their full retirement package also, because that saves money.

We older folks have seen housing booms rise and fall in the past, both nationally and locally. EVERY FRIKKIN ONE ENDS IN A RECESSION. Housing bubbles also BUST. They leave victims in their wakes. This one was the worst because it was national and because of sub prime loans and because of selling mortgages to companies interested in profit only for investors.

What also made it so bad was that every average citizen with some property promptly jumped on the wagon, jacking up rents and property values until the large percentage of low income families had no option but to try and buy housing with risky loans.

So, now, everyone gets to suffer, aside from the top 1% who are capitalizing on the miseries of others in ways like high interest payroll loans, infested with obnoxious penalty fees and credit fixing scams that don't do much aside from make the company money and happily jacking up prices of goods people need.

Credit card companies basically THREW their cards at everyone with a pulse for years and now they're complaining they're short on money and have jacked the interest rates obnoxiously high -- while still sending out 'pre-approved' cards to nearly anyone with a fixed address.

Congress is more corrupt than usual, but the corrupted members still keep getting elected back into office and idiots vote the 'Party Line'.

A YOU folks keep putting up with it.

You deserve what you get. Just, next time, leave me out of it.
 
que.guero
2011-12-01 05:40:59 PM
We learned that if you make enough doing it, it's not illegal.
 
Sanduskyed In The Shower
2011-12-01 05:41:36 PM
oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh
 
matthew_tray
2011-12-01 05:43:00 PM
15. Slideshows suck
 
Arklop
2011-12-01 05:43:34 PM
vernonFL: 14. We need more rope, to hang people like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling up by their testicles.

I don't see what that can do that duct-taping clothes irons to their bare skin and leaving them on for a few days can't.

15. Whatever you do, if they don't scream until their vocal cords collapse, you're not doing it right or just not doing it enough.
 
fusillade762
2011-12-01 05:44:40 PM
matthew_tray: 15. Slideshows suck
 
Gunther
2011-12-01 05:46:10 PM
Goddamn, that's a terrible site layout.
 
Contents Under Pressure
2011-12-01 05:46:34 PM
fusillade762: matthew_tray: 15. Slideshows suck

^THIS
 
paygun
2011-12-01 05:48:36 PM
Now they're putting the articles in a slideshow. Great.
 
paygun
2011-12-01 05:49:46 PM
Saborlas: 12. Trusting business to do the right thing without holding a gun to their heads is naive. We regulate for a reason.

Maybe they'll see the error of their ways if we all camp in the park and think happy thoughts.
 
rogue49
2011-12-01 05:50:32 PM
Because our Elected Leaders are cowards.
And our Business Leaders are crooks.

**And if you don't like being called that
or don't think you're like that,
then FARKIN' work your ass off to cure it, so you won't be lumped into the pack.

/because complacence is just as bad...
 
SageC
2011-12-01 05:50:51 PM
Sanduskyed In The Shower: oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh

Plus they're bringing their bad habits to Home Depot!
www.jaunted.com
P.S. Why are you even in this thread?
 
paygun
2011-12-01 05:52:06 PM
rogue49: Because our Elected Leaders are cowards.

Calling them cowards implies that they want to do the right thing, but they're afraid to. They don't want to do the right thing.
 
The Voice of Doom
2011-12-01 05:53:36 PM
Isn't a slideshow if you disable Javascript for abcnews.com
 
SoCalSurfer
2011-12-01 05:55:21 PM
Sanduskyed In The Shower: oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh

Thats some grade A crazy right there
 
Sanduskyed In The Shower
2011-12-01 05:56:32 PM
SoCalSurfer: Sanduskyed In The Shower: oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh

Thats some grade A crazy right there

You're crazy
 
SoCalSurfer
2011-12-01 05:58:27 PM
Sanduskyed In The Shower: SoCalSurfer: Sanduskyed In The Shower: oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh

Thats some grade A crazy right there

You're crazy
 
SoCalSurfer
2011-12-01 05:59:19 PM
Sanduskyed In The Shower: SoCalSurfer: Sanduskyed In The Shower: oh my god, its as if these mexicans don't have anything else to do besides sit outside the home depot and beg for jobs. WHY DON'T YOU STOP ASKING FOR JOBS LIKE YOU ASK FOR A WELFARE CHECK!?

Jeez, its as if its up to me to help them through life. If you can climb a fence, you can definitely attend classes at community college and try to work your way up the ladder so that one day you can lick the ass of your boss well after 5pm when you were supposed to go home just so you can get a small pay raise and finally get those tickets to the now defunct minor hockey league in your town. Maybe if mexico wasn't so screwed up with their crazy hats and cocaine then they wouldn't be coming here and taking up all my damn time. Ugh

Thats some grade A crazy right there

You're crazy

meant to post this
 
lewismarktwo
2011-12-01 06:05:04 PM
meant to post this
 
Super Chronic
2011-12-01 06:05:48 PM
Here's my lesson, kinda-sorta related to #2, but distinct:

ASK QUESTIONS.

There are many, many stories from the Enron postmortems about how people were sitting in a room, being presented these 100-page Power Point/Excel plans that were just plain incomprehensible, and didn't want to ask questions for fear of looking dumb in front of all the McKinsey types.

If something does not make sense to you, ask questions. There might be a simple answer, and then you'll have learned something; or there might not, and then you'll have averted disaster.
 
way south
2011-12-01 06:10:41 PM
Sometimes, when you don't learn, its because you don't want to learn.
I suspect that government and corporations know exactly what they did wrong, and they are ready to do it again.
 
DrPainMD
2011-12-01 06:10:51 PM
... and to the scandals yet to come.
 
SoCalSurfer
2011-12-01 06:10:52 PM
.GIFs were all too big

F**k it
 
DrPainMD
2011-12-01 06:11:33 PM
Saborlas: 11. Big businesses will screw EVERYONE in the name of short-term profits. Even their own long-term profits.

12. Trusting business to do the right thing without holding a gun to their heads is naive. We regulate for a reason.

13. We now have proof that Ayn Rand was WRONG.

You went to public school, didn't you?
 
mytdawg
2011-12-01 06:11:45 PM
For money and power Jack. It's the American way. Lesson No.79: when the tough get going, the weak get screwed.
 
VictorOfBorge
2011-12-01 06:14:16 PM
DrPainMD: Saborlas: 11. Big businesses will screw EVERYONE in the name of short-term profits. Even their own long-term profits.

12. Trusting business to do the right thing without holding a gun to their heads is naive. We regulate for a reason.

13. We now have proof that Ayn Rand was WRONG.

You went to public school, didn't you?

You were home schooled in a militia camp, weren't you?
 
Ken VeryBigLiar
2011-12-01 06:15:29 PM
Super Chronic: Here's my lesson, kinda-sorta related to #2, but distinct:

ASK QUESTIONS.

There are many, many stories from the Enron postmortems about how people were sitting in a room, being presented these 100-page Power Point/Excel plans that were just plain incomprehensible, and didn't want to ask questions for fear of looking dumb in front of all the McKinsey types.

If something does not make sense to you, ask questions. There might be a simple answer, and then you'll have learned something; or there might not, and then you'll have averted disaster.

Nobody asked because they all had their hand out at the table. They knew all the previous deals resulted in huge boosts to share price. So why not listen to the hot hand and hear what they have in store to keep your shareholders (and thus you) happy?
 
dericwater
2011-12-01 06:15:47 PM
vernonFL: 14. We need more rope, to hang people like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling up by their testicles.

First, we need to find Ken Lay.

/Hiding out somewhere in Costa Rica, probably.
 
Hey_shut_up
2011-12-01 06:19:05 PM
Rik01

You are absolutely right.

Where were the 99% the last ten years? You notice everything was fine with them when they were jacking up housing costs?

I refused to buy because I looked at the prices and said "No way" and all my peers were sneering at me and acting as if they were financial geniuses. Maxing out credit cards buying suv's and over paying by a couple hundred grand for a house.

"It's good debt" I would hear. I just shook my head, you can guess how it all worked out for them.

I feel the same for my friends who went to college and partied and farked for 4 years all on student loans. I worked my ass off on the oil fields of Alberta while they looked down their noses at me and the girls looked at me with utter disdain. Now look at them.

I have no sympathy for the 99% You farked yourselves, you spit on modest living and financial responsibility.
 
farkin_Gary
2011-12-01 06:19:57 PM
Hey, most of today's investing idiots don't even remember what the stock market was originally intended to do.

You're just wasting your breath.
 
BuckTurgidson
2011-12-01 06:20:32 PM
10 Things We Didn't Learn From Enron Silverado/S&L Scandal.
 
Gyrfalcon [TotalFark]
2011-12-01 06:26:49 PM
What I learned from this thread: Nobody read the article. Or understood it.

The biggest takeaway from Enron should have been: Nothing they did was illegal except the fraud. Posting big profits? Not illegal. Paying your directors big bonuses? Not illegal. Having crazy, incomprehensible business plans? Not illegal. Overleveraging your buyouts? Not illegal. Investing in dubious ventures overseas? Not illegal. Being greedy and wanting big dividends? Giving preference to majority shareholders? Unethical, but not illegal.

If you don't like what big corporations are doing, well, I'm sorry, but there isn't any law against being greedy. Sell your shares. Or sue in a derivative action if you think their actions have harmed the company. But then you have to show why paying the CEO eleventy billion grupniks hurt the company if it's still posting a net profit and paying dividends like it's supposed to.

This was what OWS didn't get. Corporations have no duty to their employees or the American public. They have a duty to their owners, i.e. the shareholders and their directors have duties of loyalty and care to each other. That's all. Don't like it? Then we need legislation to change that; but till then, suck it up.
 
Thenixon
2011-12-01 06:29:09 PM
Fastow's out of jail now, working for a law firm... Good thing he didn't mug somebody on the street for like $5 or he could have been looking at real time in jail.
 
Smelly Pirate Hooker
2011-12-01 06:30:17 PM
A slideshow? Pass.

I suspect the "article" is a bunch of blah blah that could be crystallized into this:

People are stupid.

I just assume that's the cause of most problems on earth. It's usually a pretty safe bet.
 
JonBuck
2011-12-01 06:31:54 PM
ENRON CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.
 
Bob16
2011-12-01 06:42:39 PM
11) Hell hath no crooks like former high school nerds turned yuppie scum.
 
Super Chronic
2011-12-01 06:43:45 PM
Gyrfalcon: What I learned from this thread: Nobody read the article. Or understood it.

....Having crazy, incomprehensible business plans? Not illegal. Overleveraging your buyouts? Not illegal....

Well, I assume that was directed at my "ask questions" post, in which case you completely missed the point. And so did many of the people working at Enron. Many of the plans turned out to be incomprehensible precisely because they did not work, from a legal, accounting or possibly tax perspective, but those details were buried. And otherwise intelligent people just assumed the whole thing worked because they didn't understand it.
 
ArtosRC
2011-12-01 06:49:27 PM
El Paso Corporation: Screwed royally by Enron, but still working with those who orchestrated their problems.

They only maintain thousands upon thousands of miles of natural gas pipeline and billions of cubic feet of natural gas.

No storm on the horizon. Nope.

/KinderMorgan-El Paso now, rather
 
Smelly Pirate Hooker
2011-12-01 06:50:13 PM
But seriously, the economy and business in general run exactly as they're intended to in America. They all (corporations and government) know what they're doing. They don't have a problem with any of it. It's all the great unwashed out here (the 99%, if you will) who have a problem with it. And we don't make enough money for them to give a fark what we think.

They've made that pretty clear.
 
generallyso
2011-12-01 06:51:51 PM
que.guero: We learned that if you make enough doing it, it's not illegal.

^^^
 
Bob16
2011-12-01 06:53:37 PM
I wanted to see Skilling wig out.

I heard he really went round the bend at one point and was acting like Dragnets "Blue boy"
 
Gunther
2011-12-01 07:02:32 PM
Gyrfalcon: The biggest takeaway from Enron should have been: Nothing they did was illegal except the fraud.

And nothing a rapist does is illegal except all the rape. What's your goddamn point?
 
Bob16
2011-12-01 07:03:36 PM
que.guero/: We learned that if you make enough doing it, it's not illegal.
________________________________________

Being a major financial contributor to Shrub didn't hurt
 
WordyGrrl
2011-12-01 07:10:01 PM
Smelly Pirate Hooker: But seriously, the economy and business in general run exactly as they're intended to in America. They all (corporations and government) know what they're doing. They don't have a problem with any of it. It's all the great unwashed out here (the 99%, if you will) who have a problem with it. And we don't make enough money for them to give a fark what we think.

They've made that pretty clear.

THIS. And if you don't approve of Congress, you need to be willing to vote out your own Congressman. This ridiculous idea that "Congress is bad and needs to be voted out, but MY Congressman is special so I'll vote to keep him/her in office" is not doing anybody any favors. If your Congressrat is great for your area, but is actively making decisions that screw over other states... He/She is an American problem, not just a state problem.
 
cryinoutloud
2011-12-01 07:32:30 PM
Hey_shut_up: Rik01
You are absolutely right.
Where were the 99% the last ten years? You notice everything was fine with them when they were jacking up housing costs?
I refused to buy because I looked at the prices and said "No way" and all my peers were sneering at me and acting as if they were financial geniuses. Maxing out credit cards buying suv's and over paying by a couple hundred grand for a house.
"It's good debt" I would hear. I just shook my head, you can guess how it all worked out for them.
I feel the same for my friends who went to college and partied and farked for 4 years all on student loans. I worked my ass off on the oil fields of Alberta while they looked down their noses at me and the girls looked at me with utter disdain. Now look at them.
I have no sympathy for the 99% You farked yourselves, you spit on modest living and financial responsibility.

I didn't do any of that shiat. I have always lived modestly, paid my bills, but I did go back to college, and I did take those loans, because how the fark else was I going to pay for it? And I took as little as I possibly could.

I was doing OK, had a decent job for at least part of the year, was working toward something, just like what's supposed to happen when you get a college degree. Then those jobs just went away--good federal jobs, probably gone forever. I guess they needed that money for bailouts. I'm pissed. The only reason I'm not on welfare right now is because I live like a poor person--oh wait. I am a poor person. And I'd be right down there protesting with the rest of them, if I could afford to leave my shiatty job and go do it.

If you think that only the people living beyond their means got farked in the last few years, think again. Every single person who had a retirement account got farked, no matter what their lifestyle.

/But not me, because I don't have one. I win?
 
X-boxershorts
2011-12-01 07:38:48 PM
But if you question, challenge or otherwise try to reign them in..

SHULIZM, LIBRALZ,, COMMIEZ... WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA...
 
fusillade762
2011-12-01 07:41:23 PM
VictorOfBorge: DrPainMD: Saborlas: 11. Big businesses will screw EVERYONE in the name of short-term profits. Even their own long-term profits.

12. Trusting business to do the right thing without holding a gun to their heads is naive. We regulate for a reason.

13. We now have proof that Ayn Rand was WRONG.

You went to public school, didn't you?

You were home schooled in a militia camp, weren't you?

ZING!
 
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