Ken Lay Dead (UPDATE: So Is His Criminal Case)
The radio is reporting it’s a heart attack.
UPDATE: I am persuaded, on reflection, that my initial reaction to this news was in bad taste. (I made a comment to the effect that, while I had hoped to see him go to prison, “I guess roasting in hell works too.”) Forgive my anger; my parents were among the thousands defrauded by the man and his company, so it’s a personal issue for me. But while I think he did some very bad things, that’s no excuse for making a tacky comment like that.
UPDATE x2: A commenter has suggested that I deleted the offensive language from the post. Not at all. Even though the comment (which was part of the post itself) was up for only a few minutes before I retracted it, the part I wish I hadn’t said is right there inside the quotes. I haven’t deleted it.
Blogging ethics require bloggers to acknowledge errors and missteps, not paper them over. Acknowledging my error is what I have done here, which is why the quoted language remains in the post.
UPDATE x3: Legally, his case died with him.
UPDATE x4: Captain Ed says it well.
“Roasting in hell”– come on, that’s just nasty!
P. Kenny (504d72) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:57 amMind your manners and take your pick: ” ‘Judgement is mine’, saith the Lord” or “De mortuis nil nisi bonum”
JH Galla (1d2729) — 7/5/2006 @ 8:05 amDude, this is in bad taste. Whether you liked him or not, thought he was guilty or not, this is unbecoming of you.
[You’re right. I’m taking the nasty comment down (though blogging etiquette requires that I disclose what I’ve done). It’s a personal issue for me, but that’s no excuse. — Patterico]
Greg (e5d4c1) — 7/5/2006 @ 8:08 amBoth you and the AP lead with you mouth, Lay was convicted but does not deserve such comment. In his life he did contribute to society, not withstanding his bad decisions in the end.
Al (875229) — 7/5/2006 @ 8:09 amI was about to make a comment about Ted Rall, but your swift retraction of the comment was enough to make any such comparisons inapt.
Xrlq (d7b415) — 7/5/2006 @ 8:21 amI have no personal connection to Lay or Enron, so I guess my feelings are more tempered. Sad that anyone would die this way. More sad for the many ppl hurt by his actions.
sharon (03e82c) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:18 amI have to admit I am confused. Did you make the comment on your blog, to yourself or to someone else because I don’t see it here, or was it redacted? Regardless, we all say things we wish we could take back. Go and sin no more my son.
btorrez (bbda7f) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:25 amFrom Jake’s Comedy Corner http://jakejakeny.blogspot.com/
“I think we can say Ken Lay just swalllowed his Smith & Wesson before he was forced to swallow some guys named Smith & Wesson.”
“Ken Lay’s family now says he died of a massive coronary. Funny how you always get a heart attack when you blow a bullet through your left ventricle.”
“For thousands of America’s chief executives, Ken Lay’s heart attack death provides a sobering lesson; so from now on, they’re going to steal their companies’ money AND stay in shape.”
Rogers Hornsby (27696e) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:52 amFrom Jake’s Comedy Corner:
http://jakejakeny.blogspot.com/
“I think we can say Ken Lay just swalllowed his Smith & Wesson before he was forced to swallow some guys named Smith & Wesson.”
“Ken Lay’s family now says he died of a massive coronary. Funny how you always get a heart attack when you blow a bullet through your left ventricle.”
“For thousands of America’s chief executives, Ken Lay’s heart attack death provides a sobering lesson; so from now on, they’re going to steal their companies’ money AND stay in shape.”
Rogers Hornsby (27696e) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:53 amFrom Jake’s Comedy Corner:
“I think we can say Ken Lay just swalllowed his Smith & Wesson before he was forced to swallow some guys named Smith & Wesson.”
“Ken Lay’s family now says he died of a massive coronary. Funny how you always get a heart attack when you blow a bullet through your left ventricle.”
“For thousands of America’s chief executives, Ken Lay’s heart attack death provides a sobering lesson; so from now on, they’re going to steal their companies’ money AND stay in shape.”
Rogers Hornsby (27696e) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:53 amKen Lay’s end aptly illustrates the discrepancy in justice for the rich, who commit “nonviolent” crimes that victimize thousands, and the usual drug-addled or mentally unbalanced or gangsta defendant whose crime scares society more but in reality hurts fewer a lot less.
My goodness, how sad that he died a free man at his Aspen summer home (as opposed to his Texas estate), without having served any time, without having sacrificed his privileged lifestyle.
God help the typical public defender client who dares to ask for a couple of days to turn himself in to arrange for his pets, his property, or his children, when P and his brethren assert that he is a danger, flight risk, and can’t be trusted.
nosh (d8da01) — 7/5/2006 @ 9:55 amKen Lay wasn’t going to go anywhere.
sharon (03e82c) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:04 amOh, and P — such courage you showed by apologizing for the comments you now consider to be rash and in bad taste yet keeping them up so other readers can consider them and assess your contrition.
Uh, oh. No, you didn’t do that. Rather than face possible criticism, the now rock-star blogger just erases them. Such integrity!!
[“Uh, no.” I didn’t just erase the comment made in bad taste. It’s right there, inside the quotes, for all to see — even though it was up for only a few minutes. But I moved that tasteless language into the update and contextualized it, so that nobody would think that I *continue* to believe it was an appropriate comment. This way, everyone can see what I said, but nobody thinks for even a second that I stand behind my comment. I’m not hiding anything. I don’t do that. That’s why I left the quote up. — P]
nosh (d8da01) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:06 amAspen summer home – good grief.
Wesson (c20d28) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:06 am#11 Ken Lay died before he was sentenced. I don’t see how you can say that illustrates the discrepancy in justice for the rich and the poor.
Lay and other corporate criminals were responsbile for many people losing millions of dollars in the aggregate. Ask someone who has had a gun pointed at his head or a knife at this throat by a “drug addled or mentally unbalanced defendant” whether he would rather have been defrauded by corporate criminal.
Stu707 (cc7fa3) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:09 amMy first thought was how nice it is that the State doesn’t have to provide “three hots and a cot” until he dies in prison. Ken Lay has a smile on his face because he beat the system AGAIN.
rab (b4fbe6) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:30 amI question the timing. Also would like to know where Dick Cheney and/or Karl Rove were at the time.
Old Coot (caf903) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:35 amFirst, a poor defendant would not be out of custody pending sentencing. Second, the sentencing was scheduled FIVE MONTHS following the conviction. Third, there was no guarantee that Lay or Skilling would be incarcerated pending the endless appeals.
Finally, your assertion that being robbed of ten or a hundred dollars and maybe a watch at knifepoint or gunpoint is how the media perpetuates the myths justifying the “war on crime.” Scary, yes. Preventable with some common sense, yes. Able to be cut by over 50% by simply decriminalizing drugs, yes.
But truly punish the corporate offenders? No, that would be going too far. By the way, when is the last time your local Wal-Mart, poultry plant, or even carwash was fined the $1000 to $10,000 per offense for hiring illegals?
nosh (d8da01) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:39 amI know this isn’t the place for anyone who thinks Lay (and Skilling) got a raw deal.. but sometimes I just can’t help myself.
Lay was convicted, perhaps in no small part, because the prosecutors kept a whole slew of defense witnesses off the stand by threatening them with indictment. Funny, isn’t it, how, now that the prosecutors got their scalps, they haven’t bothered with actually indicting any of those potential defense witnesses (by the way, the same thing happened to Bernie Ebbers in his Worldcom trial). Patrick: this a tactic you approve of?
And, with no offense to any of the members of the jury, but there is no way they could truly understand the particulars of what Lay and Skilling did – or didn’t do. I’ve spent many years in business finance and I’m not totally clear about some of what they are alleged to have done. There’s no way that you can take 12 people off the street and expect them to understand. And, absent the ability to understand, and absent the ability to acknowledge they didn’t understand, they simply voted for blood. We’re supposed to be entitled to a jury of our peers… yet not a single member of the jury had the experience to truly be able to understand what was going on. How many of them had corporate experience at the top level? How many of them understood corporate finance?
And please spare me the tears for those who, per #15, lost millions of dollars buying Enron stock. Investors bought Enron stock because Enron stock was going up and that was the only thing that mattered to them. They didn’t buy Enron because they had done due diligence and understood the business model, nor did they invest because they listened to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling extol Enron in conference calls. They went chasing the big return and they got burnt… as one would expect – and want – to happen to people who invest blindly.
The sad fact is that Lay got jumped by prosecutors eager to cement their reputations before heading out for the big bucks in private practice.
steve sturm (b5aa23) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:51 am“And please spare me the tears for those who, per #15, lost millions of dollars buying Enron stock. Investors bought Enron stock because Enron stock was going up and that was the only thing that mattered to them. They didn’t buy Enron because they had done due diligence and understood the business model, nor did they invest because they listened to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling extol Enron in conference calls. They went chasing the big return and they got burnt… as one would expect – and want – to happen to people who invest blindly.”
While it’s true there were some speculators who got burned. Employees of Enron had no choice in their pension plans but to invest in Enron stock. This was a very common practice in corporate America until this debacle ended that. The employer portion of a pension plan was invested at least 50% in company stock (sometimes up to 100%). While employees could invest THEIR portion in other stock, they were required to keep the matching funds in company stock.
I have no sympathy for speculators who got burned, but there were a lot of little guys out there who thought their pension plans were safe and I do have sympathy for them.
sharon (03e82c) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:57 amI don’t cry for the investors, although many of them were simply members of pension funds who trusted the stockbuyers to do that very “due diligence” and were screwed, therefore, by the buyers AND by Ken Lay.
I do, however, cry for the ordinary hardworking employees whose retirements got swallowed up in Lay’s moral freefall. I don’t think Lay was an evil man, but I certainly believe he was morally unable to stand up and report the truth when it became obvious that he had such a duty. And I’m sure that moment was for him much earlier than for the rest of us.
His charitable work is still admirable, given that he got very little public attention for it. So his life was a large scale version of everyone’s, a mix of good and bad. Big good, big bad.
Only in America.
Dave (b6a083) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:00 ampatterico, you’re way too hard on yourself (and your commenters) on “taste” issues. this isn’t a sunday school here. mr. lay:
assistant devil's advocate (3fc31b) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:12 am1. cashed out his enron while his employees were still locked in, helpless to avoid the value of their retirement plans sinking to zero.
2. cheated the state of california out of billions of dollars during the phony energy crisis.
3. at all times during his life, used his position in society (including his relationship with george w. bush) to avoid the consequences of his fraudulent business practices. it has already been noted that an ordinary blue-collar defendent just convicted of federal crimes would be escorted out the non-public door of the courtroom immediately after the verdict.
under these circumstances, “roasting in hell” is pretty tame (we pagans don’t believe in hell anyway, it’s just a figure of speech. here’s another one: “being buggered in the ass by satan as you read this.” you’re welcome.)
@steve sturm:
the arrogance in post #19 is typical of the attitude of any corporate criminal. no juror could possibly be as smart as you, right?
At least one liberal blogger, Gordo of Appletree, has a brief comment about Mr Lay’s demise, along with a picture of Mr Lay and his “best friend.”
Not hard to guess to whom Gordo was attempting to tie Mr Lay; he won’t be the last.
But, in the end, Mr Lay proved himself to be a good friend to President Bush; now the libs won’t be yelling that the President will pardon Mr Lay just before he leaves office.
Dana (3e4784) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:24 amForgive my anger; my parents were among the thousands defrauded by the man and his company, so it’s a personal issue for me.
I heard a simmilar comment from a co-worker whose relatives lost a substansial sum on Enron. I’ve wondered though, were they (and your parents) delibertly not asking too many questions because the returns were so phenomenal?
I’m not trying to make an accusation of greed or unethical behavior, just that the human nature of the investors may have been as much of a problem as Ken Lay.
Foutunatly being broke allowed me to play the wise skeptic and largely avoid having to sell blood to pay off a margin call on dotcom stocks. I mean, even with out hindsight, how did people come to invest millions in companies that were going to make money selling things like dog food over the internet?
When we started having the phoney “electricty shortages” here in california along with staggering increases in utility costs, that had to be a tip off that market manipulation (to use a kind discription for fraud) was taking place, and that the government was going to knock on the door and shut down the party. More so, because politicans like Gray Davis were taking a lot of heat for this and needed someone to transfer the blame to.
Now my understanding is that many of the Enron employees were not able to sell their stock due to company rules or vesting, but what was the case with your parents?
TakeFive (2bf7bd) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:30 amP.S. – and I promise next time I won’t omit the spell check.
TakeFive (2bf7bd) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:33 amBut…but…I don’t understand. All you wingnuts loved Ken Lay, right? Didn’t he embody the capitalistic zeitgeist that makes your little Randian hearts go pitter-patter? And weren’t Rove and Cheney feeding you talking points about how great Ken Lay is?
Cheney’s going to shoot you in the face with a shotgun for going off message like this.
Sincerely,
A Moonbat.
P.S. Waaah.
(PPS Is there a “conventional wisdom” entry to be written about Ken Lay?)
See Dubya (1b33c3) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:50 amNosh,
Just a guess here, but you haven’t been the victim of a one of those “little” crimes you downplay, like robbery, burglary or auto theft, huh?
Pro Cynic (523f64) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:01 pm#18 A poor defendant on bond prior to pleading guilty or being found guilty would continue on bond pending sentencing unless the prosecution could show that he was a flight risk or dangerous.
Three or four weeks is typical between judgement and sentencing. I don’t know why there was a 5 month delay in the Lay case. It may be due to the complexities of sorting out the financial issues that accompany his conviction, possible forfeiture, restitution, etc.
It is not unusual for defendants to be released on bond pending appeal if they are not a flight risk or dangerous.
Have you ever spoken to someone who was robbed at knife or gunpoint?
I don’t share your beleif that street crime is preventable by “common sense” and could be reduced by 50% by legalizing drugs.
Those convicted of corporate crimes have been receiving prison sentences. In the Lay-Skilling case, the government’s cheif witness, Fastow, pleaded guilty and agreed to a 10 year prison sentence. Skilling will likely receive at least double that.
Stu707 (cc7fa3) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:03 pmSharon (#20) and Dave (#21): the money enron workers ‘lost’ in their 401ks was enron stock that was ‘given’ to them as employer contributions. This stock didn’t cost the employees anything so, by definition, they couldn’t have lost anything on it when the stock tanked. Enron contributed stock because it didn’t cost Enron anything to do so. Had Enron not been able to do so, I doubt Enron would have given the employees real cash. And for the employees who invested their employee contributions in Enron, they were doubling down on the bet they were making on Enron (the first bet being their working there in the first place).. so no sympathy there.
As for those who lost money because they had invested in mutual funds and the like, remember that mutual funds by law can have a maximum (I think) of 5% of their holdings in any one equity – so any losses on Enron stock would be diluted by their other holdings.
And ada (#22), it’s not that no juror could be as smart as me.. or Lay.. or any other corporate executive charged with a crime… it’s that the average juror just doesn’t understand corporate finance. If I ever found myself charged with a crime, I would sure hope the jury had some people who understood the subject matter… and not the ‘idiot’s guide to corporate finance’ the prosecutors read, but a real understanding of such things as interest-rate swaps, forward repurchase agreements and the like. here’s a question for you: without looking it up, give me the reason why Fastow’s offshore entities were improperly accounted for.
steve sturm (b5aa23) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:09 pmI always had a soft spot in my heart for Lay because of the enormity of good works he did for his community before he crossed over to the bad side. I think at some point he was a very decent man.
Jane (5a66ce) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:09 pmDon’t apologize for being pissed at this guy. As I said on another blog covering this subject, Lay is in hell right now with Jon Benet Ramsey’s mother and both of them are getting hourly pineapple ass screwings.
Trickish Knave (8822ca) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:15 pmTotally agree with your posts, Steve.
I thought the offshore companies were accounted for later as profit. Or that Fastow was a consultant.But following this trial was a tricky matter “if” anyone wanted to look at the actual timeline of events, in detail. From a moralistic viewpoint, we were all outraged. For who did what, when, I’m still unsure.
I do wonder if Skilling was more to blame, quitting as suddenly as he did. All the people attacking Bush about Lay (over the last couple years), should have seen the case as unfurling. Apparently the companies were so complex that it took the govt. that long to work its way ‘up’.
Wouldn’t it be fair to assume that jury selection went okay, else the defense would’ve complained?
Clearly no law degree or M.B.A. here. A very complex case.
Vermont Neighbor (a9ae2c) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:32 pm“Sharon (#20) and Dave (#21): the money enron workers ‘lost’ in their 401ks was enron stock that was ‘given’ to them as employer contributions. This stock didn’t cost the employees anything so, by definition, they couldn’t have lost anything on it when the stock tanked. Enron contributed stock because it didn’t cost Enron anything to do so. Had Enron not been able to do so, I doubt Enron would have given the employees real cash. And for the employees who invested their employee contributions in Enron, they were doubling down on the bet they were making on Enron (the first bet being their working there in the first place).. so no sympathy there.”
Sorry, but the stock part of their pension plans was part of their compensation for working at the company. In other words, it was part of the incentive that Enron gave its employees to entice them to work there and make the company more profitable. They relied on the information given to them by the company to make their investment decisions.
sharon (03e82c) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:40 pmWhether Ken Lay or anyone else is “burning in hell” is God’s decision. Only he knows the man’s soul, none of us do. Fastow was the major perpetrator in this. Also, most of us don’t pay the attention to our investments that we should. People who put all of their eggs in the Enron basket were taking a big risk even without the fraud. I hope all of America will learn from what happened and be more attentive to their investments and diversify.
Florence Schmieg (a1e126) — 7/5/2006 @ 12:48 pmAnd yes, I do tend to agree that everyone was happy when the numbers were going up and hoped for more. No excuse for fraud though.
Sharon: and either the employees knew that Enron was bogus, in which case I don’t care, or they were ignorant about Enron, in which case I don’t care.
Yes, the stock was part of their compensation, but so what? part of any comp package is an element that takes into account the risks and rewards of working at a particular company. if they wanted safety and security, they could have gone to work for the government (perhaps as a district attorney somewhere?), but those jobs don’t pay as good. The Enron employees chose to take the bigger bucks paid to those working in the private sector in general and Enron in particular and they chose to overlook that there’s an element of risk working in the private sector… sometimes companies go bust. It probably never occured to them that the great compensation packages they were getting might have been attributable to the fact that Enron wasn’t as sound a company as, for example, GE or Exxon..
steve sturm (b5aa23) — 7/5/2006 @ 1:02 pm@steve sturm:
assistant devil's advocate (3fc31b) — 7/5/2006 @ 1:50 pmi don’t know why fastow’s offshore entities were improperly accounted for, honestly, i am not a cpa. at a rough guess, these entities existed either to book profits outside the irs’s reach, or to book losses away from enron’s main balance sheet so as not to frighten investors. our system contemplates that expert witnesses will school hopefully intelligent jurors on what they need to know.
you are no friend of the working man. your statement that the enron stock was a “gift” to its employees is outrageously patronizing and contemptuous to the employees. enron lied about the prospects of its stock, and forbade the employees from cashing out at the same time top management was doing just that. your suggestion that enron employees go to work for the government, perhaps as district attorneys, is almost psychotic. you need a bar card and an eager-beaver, pro-establishment bent to be a district attorney, i have one but not the other. do you really want government to expand into the employer of last resort for all americans? is that what you call conservatism?
almost all enron employees (except for some of the energy traders i’ve heard on tape) were neither cynical operators nor ignorant rubes. they were people in houston looking for a job to feed themselves and their families, and here was a marquee company well-connected to the administration that had openings. please do a better job of concealing your contempt for the ordinary joes out there who look for a job/land a job/work at the job.
i almost bought a couple hundred shares in enron, almost but not quite. the notion of an energy company making money by creating a trading market instead of actually producing energy was appealling. too bad it was all based on the lies of lay/skilling/etc., and the jury rightly convicted them of federal crimes. by your standards, no corporate criminal would ever be held to account. somewhere in the bush administration, there’s a job for you!
nosh (comment 13) you are wrong, if Patterico thinks his original comment was unjustifiably hurtful to others he is ethically obliged to remove it (or tone it down) not leave it up.
James B. Shearer (fc887e) — 7/5/2006 @ 2:14 pmsteve sturm, the purpose of Enron’s complicated business structure and accounting was to hide the true condition of the company. That is all the jury needed to understand, the arcane details are unimportant.
As for the stock Enron employees received as sharon noted this was not a gift but part of their compensation. And the notion that it didn’t cost Enron anything to provide it is typical of the accounting fantasies that did Enron in.
James B. Shearer (fc887e) — 7/5/2006 @ 2:25 pmMr. Shearer (#37). I disagree in part. While I agree he has an obligation to change or update the original post if he came to a different conclusion, he should have left the original post stand and then offered his second thoughts in an update or other fashion that anyone could readily see. The way it was done, atleast to me, made it confusing as if he were diliberately hiding the original post. I know that is not the case, but that is how it appeared at first glance.
btorrez (bbda7f) — 7/5/2006 @ 2:25 pmJane, Ken Lay might have been a decent man as an assistant high school principal or something like that but unfortunately he seems to have been totally unfit for his actual position. His first duty to his community was to adequately perform his day job. Perhaps he would have done better to devote less time to outside charitable endeavors and more time to minding the store.
James B. Shearer (fc887e) — 7/5/2006 @ 2:43 pmRe comment #35:
Are you really this stupid? There’s a helluva lot of space between employees “knowing” Enron was crooked (unlikely for most people) or being “ignorant” of Enron’s financial machinations. I doubt that most of Enron’s employees fell into either category.
As for the idiocy that they should go work for the government, if everybody worked for the govt, who would support them? It’s the private sector that makes those public sector jobs available.
sharon (fecb65) — 7/5/2006 @ 2:53 pm#36 ADA: you (probably unintentionally) make my point about the shortcomings of our system. It takes a whole lot more than the couple of hours the ‘expert’ testifies (in your words, schools the jury) for someone to truly understand the intricacies of corporate finance… and in the case of Fastow’s OBEs (which, more than anything Lay or Skilling were ever accused of doing, were the proximate cause of Enron’s collapse), the fraud was that were treated as being truly ‘independent’ from Enron when in fact they were not… and the reason I used quotes around independent is because there is a gray line in defining independence… a line that experts spend debating and a line that the average juror isn’t going to get – even after being ‘schooled’.
and your comment that enron banned its employees from cashing out while allowing top management to do so is a twisting of what happened. no enron employee was ever prevented from selling enron stock they might have held outside their 401k. nor (I believe, but aren’t positive) was any enron employee – except for a short period – banned from selling enron stock they had in their 401k if they had purchased that stock with their employee contributions (as opposed to their employer contributions, which did have restrictions). the stock top management sold was stock held outside their 401ks. and since no enron employee paid a cent for their employer contributions, they, by definition, lost nothing on that stock when the stock tanked.
If by ‘no friend of the working man’ you mean someone who doesn’t absolve people of the repercussions of their decisions, I’ll agree. if they didn’t want to or didn’t care enough to check out enron before going to work there, why should society get all upset when things don’t work out? the fact is they took jobs at enron rather than somewhere else and they benefitted while enron was doing well. are you suggesting the secretaries at enron took their jobs because they saw that Lay was friends with Bush? if not, why bring it up? And isn’t government work already the refuge for those not wanting the ‘pressure’ of working in the private sector? for those who want a decent paycheck, steady raises, pretty much total job security and no need to worry about their employer going broke?
No, corporate criminals ought to be held to account. scott sullivan (worldcom) belongs in jail. so do the guys from healthsouth. so do the rigas’ (adelphia). but those are easy ones, as they either stole from the company or there was no defense for the way they kept the books. but that wasn’t the case with enron. lay and skilling didn’t steal ‘from’ enron (the way kozlowski did from tyco). there was a defense for the way the books were kept (with the exception of fastow’s OBEs) as testified to by two well respected accounting professors.
I repeat, lay and skilling seem to have been railroaded by prosecutors who were looking for scalps… to satisfy the outcry from people like you, who admittedly don’t understand what was going on, but nonetheless wanted your pound of flesh.
and now it’s dinnertime on the east coast, so I’m off for the night… I can’t wait to read your supported by the facts reply.
steve sturm (b5aa23) — 7/5/2006 @ 3:03 pmFor Christ’s sake Patrick,cut yourself a little slack.A brief expression of emotion is not something for a mea culpa.It’s called being human.You didn’t send it to his family;this wasn’t a defendant on whom you had jurisdiction.It’s not a big deal.And,fortunately for us all,no human being maakes those ultimate dispositions.
corwin (8589d3) — 7/5/2006 @ 4:35 pmI think the matter of death and crime was discussed here the other day. But, to me, now it seems more regrettable.
I’m not happy that he died, but he escaped a lot of the consequences that way.
Psyberian (dd13d6) — 7/5/2006 @ 5:49 pmWell, there *is* the cost of lost opportunity. Presumably Enron was paying employees at a level to work at Enron instead of somewhere else, and at a level to motivate them. Had the people receiving this “free” stock realized it was worth as much as my dirty socks, some would have gone to work elsewhere with better compensation. The problem is compounded by people being told they have to work another year or so to get their $100k or so of unvested stock. Yay for all of us so successful who can walk away from stuff like that.
And what’s with this fantasy of it even being possible for any joebob to check out Enron’s financials before going to work there? Yeah, I’m going to say, “Oh, this Arthur Andersen audit is bullshit. I can see through this a mile away.”
no Enron employee paid a cent for their employer contributions, they, by definition, lost nothing on that stock when the stock tanked.
Wesson (c20d28) — 7/5/2006 @ 5:54 pmPatterico — You did delete and change the post, after being criticized and giving it a second thought. Putting the offensive phrase in quotation points does not correct it. You posted, received criticism from readers, didn’t just retract it but erased it, and changed it to your liking.
Hey P — How similar is this to your gleeful posting about the WMDs we supposedly discovered a couple weeks ago? Haven’t read a lot about that since even the most rabid neoCons can’t create a viable argument over spent obsolete shells left over from our last war in Iraq. And I’m trying to remember, wasn’t the code name on one or the other “Enduring Freedom”? LOL
nosh (d8da01) — 7/5/2006 @ 5:59 pmnosh, if Patterico posted something that violated a copyright he is not obligated to continue the violation for all time. He is obligated to mitigate the damage as much as possible by removing the material. An explanantion to his readers is nice but a secondary obligation. This is no different. Given that Patterico has decided that his original post was unjustifiably hurtful to any friends or relations of Lay that might encounter it, his primary obligation is to stop further harm by removing the post. If Patterico owned slaves and freed them, you would be objecting that Patterico was covering up the fact that he once owned slaves.
James B. Shearer (fc887e) — 7/5/2006 @ 6:23 pmnosh,
My statement in the post was, i believe:
I described it as this:
Boy, I sure papered that over!
You are accusing me of taking it down because you want to make a spurious argument that I lack courage — because I recently called on you to disclose your identity, given your “chickenhawk” attacks on me. I reasoned that spouting opinions under one’s true name takes far less courage than enlisting — yet you criticize me for failing to do the latter even as you lack the guts to do the former.
It is no surprise that you are trying to attack my courage, then, as you were clearly wounded by my challenge. And it is no surprise that you’re stretching. But again, if courage is the topic, how’s about having the courage to tell us who you are? It’s an act that takes very little courage, really. Are you up to it?
Yup — that’s what I thought.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/5/2006 @ 6:47 pmThe way it was done, atleast to me, made it confusing as if he were diliberately hiding the original post. I know that is not the case, but that is how it appeared at first glance.
btorrez,
Yes, it was unclear at first glance because it was unclear whether it was a comment or the post where I had made the statement. I made this clear in a subsequent update, once I read your comment and saw the issue.
Sorry for any confusion, but I think it’s clear now. I think leaving it as it was would have left the rude and tasteless appearance, which is what I was trying to avoid. That’s why I did what I did, fully explaining what I had done, with a quote of the offending material, but with context.
Enough already. Anyone who still wants to accuse me of dishonesty at this point obviously has their own agenda.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/5/2006 @ 6:52 pmToo bad those of us who got banned at another site (your comment recommending it helped make that happen) didn’t get a second chance. We just got permanently booted. And we were emotionally charged too (we had just learned about our 2 soldiers that had been savagely tortured to death). You acted like we were all heartless and way out of line, but we were upset too, and sometimes we say dumb things too. It would be nice if we could have been given the same consideration and understanding that you request.
banned (b79190) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:07 pmSuggest you ask that site to give us another chance too. We would appreciate it.
Too bad those of us who got banned at another site (your comment recommending it helped make that happen) didn’t get a second chance. We just got permanently booted. And we were emotionally charged too (we had just learned about our 2 soldiers that had been savagely tortured to death). You acted like we were all heartless and way out of line, but we were upset too, and sometimes we say dumb things too. It would be nice if we could have been given the same consideration and understanding that you request.
gotbanned (b79190) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:09 pmSuggest you ask that site to give us another chance too. We would appreciate it.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, everyone makes mistakes.
richdavis53 (b79190) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:11 pmbanned,
I think you’re talking about Hot Air? That was coming anyway. Which banned commenter were you?
I’m sure if you were contrite and wrote Allah, he might reconsider. His call, of course.
Patterico (50c3cd) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:23 pmI wonder if the information presented at http://spitbull.blogspot.com is correct. He avers that “Under the doctrine of “abatement ab initio,” a defendant who dies after the jury convicted him but before the judge sentences him “stands as if he never had been indicted or convicted” in the first place.” I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet, but the post seems to have validity. Any thoughts, Patterico?
Curmudgeon (4dfcb3) — 7/5/2006 @ 7:36 pm“and since no enron employee paid a cent for their employer contributions, they, by definition, lost nothing on that stock when the stock tanked.”
They didn’t pay a cent of the compensation they receive in the form of a paycheck, but, according to the govt, that stock was part of their compensation. Therefore, they, indeed, did lose something.
sharon (fecb65) — 7/5/2006 @ 8:01 pmThe prima facie evidence, Steve, that Enron engaged in fraudulent accounting practices is the fact that the accounting firms which performed the audits of the firm all accepted sanctions.
Also, there is a judge in proceedings for, among other reasons, deciding whether a crime has been committed. I’ll give this one the benefit of the doubt in his determination. A question of this sort is not for the jury, excepting rare circumstances of justifiable nullification. This guy didn’t nullify the jury’s verdict, either. Sorry, the prosecutor is not to blame any longer under your theory.
Having said this, I fundamentally agree that far more blame lies with shareholders and employees than is widely asserted. I saw circumstances in my firm (and I was not a white collar worker) that led me to selloff all my stock. It wasn’t rocket science, either. I avoided losing 1/3 of the value of said stock.
Ed (2b0094) — 7/5/2006 @ 10:14 pm@steve sturm:
assistant devil's advocate (ae9a5b) — 7/5/2006 @ 11:21 pm“it takes a whole lot more than the couple of hours the ‘expert’ testifies (in your words, schools the jury) for someone to truly understand the intricacies of corporate finance…”
dude, this trial went on for months, each side had multiple experts and took all the time it thought was needed.
your position is un-american. you suggest that there are some crimes that american juries are simply incapable of resolving, notwithstanding ample expert testimony, and that they involve the “intricacies of corporate finance”. i reject that thinking. juries are provided for in the bill of rights, they aren’t perfect, but they’re the best factual adjudication system ever devised on this planet, and real conservatives who uphold the values expressed in the bill of rights will consequently uphold the jury system.
i don’t have to be a senior partner in a major accounting firm to understand that somebody committed a crime here by falsifying the numbers, any more than i have to be a child molester to understand that somebody criminally molested a child.
This is a good example of why many people detest the legal system.
The morning paper said that his conviction will legally not exist as soon as a lawyer runs to a judge and asks for dismissal. And that will also make it harder to collect by lawsuit against his estate.
I can’t read Ken Lay’s mind. And I couldn’t when he was alive. Maybe he was innocent but unfortunate. Maybe he was guilty. But one thing he certainly was was convicted. This BS about that changing when he died doesn’t fly with me.
K (f31147) — 7/7/2006 @ 1:28 pm