GETTING "LAYED"
Will Ken Lay do hard time? Will any of the white collar criminals from the Enron scandal really suffer? This smells just like the S&L scandal of some years back. Country club jails will house these hooligans, who will earn interest on their protected ill-gotten gains...all the while working on their tans, their tennis game, their computer skills and toning up those pecs, at government (read: taxpayer) expense.
There are families in severe crisis due to the shenanigans and greed of these Enron bastards. Loss of job, loss of insurance, loss of ability to pay next month's rent --- none of these horrid events occur in the lives of the thieves who ran off with the money.
The regular people, the ones attempting to put food on the table, to provide clothing and shelter to their loved ones, to meet their monthly obligations, are the real and true victims of this gross thievery. Imagine a divorced Dad, out of work due to the Enron scam, unable to make the weekly payments. The guilt, the shame, the pain, the difficulty in explaining the situation...will Kenneth Lay and his group even begin to know such personal horrors?
The impact on peoples' lives is too huge to even attempt to express in this space. There is real, true, actualy suffering as a result of this. Then there is the annoyance the execs will have to put up with until the fire dies down.
Concurrently, is Kenneth Lay worrying about his insurance payments? About medical care? About next month's rent, or putting some money away for a college fund, or getting new shoes for the kids? Of course not. Nor, I imagine, does he or any do any of the other criminals give a hoot. They were in it for the money, and they could not care any less about the "regular Janes and Joes" who took it on the chin as they perpetrated their dirty work.
The tragedy of the Enron scandal, in my view, is that the pain and suffering is dealt out to innocent victims. The ones who made it happen --those greedy pigs-- will most likely have to bear with a small amount of inconvenience. And then they will get on with their lives, no major damage done. They'll most likely grouse to their buddies about how much they had to pay in attorney's fees. Imagine, of course, this grousing going on at golf courses, over drinks, or at fine restaurants when they are out socializing.
Meanwhile, the true victims will suffer credit woes for years, pain and suffering from the real traumas of their personal lives as affected by the financial ruin brought upon them by these self-aggrandizing pigs from management.
Jeff Danziger is one of my favorite political cartoonists. He had a good one on the Enron assholes:
It would be a good thing for the guilty parties in this affair to be the ones to lose their homes, have all their spare money taken away, to suddenly feel the real pain, fear, and other emotions and ancillary horrors associated with one's world falling apart.
How nice it would be to see Kenneth Lay and his gang of thieves and associates having to borrow use of someone's PC to do their resume. Having to stand on line at Kinko's to make copies. Having to go buy stamps at the Post Office and really feel the hurt of spending that cash (which otherwise might be buying milk, bread, cereal) and wondering if the resume will even be seen by a person actually in a position to hire them.
The criminals in this affair don't know what it is like to worry about the little expenses. The very idea of stamp money having impact on one's financial scheme is out of their purview.
This whole Enron business makes steam come out of my ears. One fears there will be no true justice when this is all over.
Curious about Shrubby's closeness to Ken Lay, and the niceties Shrubby did for his buddy-boy Ken when Shrubby was governing Texas? Well, say-hey, good buddy, lookee here [1]!!!!
That link comes from a wonderful site [2], the home page of Texans for Public Justice.