The answer to my question was: Timothy Beldon Mr. Belden, a former researcher at a federal energy lab, went to work for Enron after it bought Portland General Electric Co., a regional utility located in Portland, Ore., in 1997. According to former colleagues, Mr. Belden worked hard at uncovering regulatory loopholes and was the brains behind many of the trading strategies for exploiting them. Under his leadership, Enron's revenue from energy trading in the Western states rose from $50 million in 1999 to $800 million by 2001. Although it's unclear how much money Enron made from these trading strategies, the firm's overall electricity-trading profit soared to $1.8 billion during 2000 and 2001. According to Enron records subpoenaed by a California Senate committee investigating the state's electricity crisis, Mr. Belden met or dined with Mr. Whalley and Mr. Skilling on several occasions while he headed the Western trading unit.
The man who devised Enron's infamous "Forney's Perpetual Loop" in the 1990s was arrested Tuesday by federal agents on charges he used sophisticated, but illegal, trading techniques to manipulate the power markets during California's power crisis. John Forney, 41, is the third former Enron Corp. executive who worked at the company's office in Portland, Ore., to be charged with crimes related to California's energy crisis. Forney became manager of the company's the Real Time trading desk in 1999. He transferred to Enron's Portland-based West Power Trading Center in 1997, after joining the energy firm in 1993. He reported to Timothy Belden, who pleaded guilty last month on a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Another for Enron executive, Jeff Richter, also pleaded guilty in the ongoing investigation into the energy company. According to the complaint, filed against Forney last week and unsealed Tuesday in San Francisco, the former energy trader has been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly using the complex trading strategies to evade federal price caps on wholesale power generated inside California and to schedule the transmission of power that Enron did not actually own.
Yes, Forney was a nice guess . . . but an incorrect one. He did not work at Portland General Electric, nor did he have a background at the Livermore Lab, and as you so accurately mentioned . . . he reported to Timothy Belden. Have a nice Weekend!
Waggie, how is it that you continue to miss the point over and over again. I am NOT talking about the Forney's and the Beldens. I am talking about the general trading population at Enron at large. Are you intentionally trying to miss the point over and over again. I have said on ET many times, I feel no sympathy for the Enron officers and Executives. I am talking about the Enron Traders!!!!! Waggie, just get over this already OK, you are becoming the biggest whiney bitch on ET and that is not good. You do not want to have that title my friend.
Mav, I am not being "whiney" whatsoever. I simply pointed out that you are WRONG once again! Is that such a surprise to you? LOL! You said that you knew a lot about the Enron trading desk and operation, had friends there even. Yet, you couldn't even answer a rather basic question about who the "ring-leader" was up at Portland General Electric. How come it is so impossible for you to admit when you are wrong, or unable to back up your grandiose Egotistical statements? Is your Ego that big of an obstacle for you?
Waggie, again I'm going to have to call you out. I'm going to have to ask you to use the search button and show me the quote where I said I know all about the trading operations at Enron. I said I knew traders at Enron. And I further went on to say the type of young kids that they were and what they did at Enron. I never once said I understood the operations there. Dude, man I keep busting your balls on this stuff to get it through your thick head, stop putting words in my mouth. I know this is a popular technique you like to employ but it never works. Please, quote me the line where I said quote "I knew a lot about the Enron trading desk and operation" I'm waiting buddy, I hate to keep doing this to you man, but I don't have any choice. You lie, I expose. Maybe this will be the new slogan for Fox News. LOL.
OK waggie, I did the legwork for you. Here is my quote from one page ago. "I had friends there, both in trading and in sales and marketing, I have been to Houston, I have been on their trading floors." And you take that statement and say that I said I understood their trading operation? Are you serious? How do you get that from what I said? I suppose if I spent a day on one of the trading floors at SAC, I could leave the building and tell all my friends that I understand their trading operations there? Dude, nothing could be further from the truth. LOL. Seriously, you are a riot. Enron was possibly the most complicated, sophisticated trading operation in the world. Many of the traders that worked there didn't even understand what was going on. But mav does, he has visited their trading floor and he has friends there, he understands it completely. LOL. Thanks Waggie, thanks for that laugh.
Written in April 1998 [ Top Ten Myths About Electric Deregulation ] by George C. Loehr as appeared in the 15 April 98 issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly http://www.elucem.com/electricity/column/topten.html Myth Reliability in the Restructured, Deregulated Industry Will be Just as High as in the Past Reality Don't bet on it! In fact, it's far more likely that deregulation and restructuring will lead to major degradation in bulk power system reliability. There are many reasons for this, some of which have already been touched on above. But here are a few of the most important: Complication -- Assuring reliability used to be fairly straightforward--not easy, but straightforward. There were a limited number of players, a relatively simple infrastructure, and virtually universal commitment to the goals of reliability and conformance with criteria. Perhaps most important, there was a culture best characterized by cooperation and coordination. In the "new world order," we now have an almost limitless number of participants, a very complex (and becoming even more so) infrastructure, little commitment to the goals of reliability, a "how can we beat it" attitude toward criteria by many--and a culture characterized at best by competition and confidentiality, and at worst by distrust, litigation and authoritarianism. Legalism -- Conformance with criteria is becoming an exercise in what we can get away with; how far can we go to just avoid violating the rules; and a search for loopholes. Conformance is "mandatory", and punishment assured. What a far cry from the days of so-called "voluntary" conformance, when players obeyed the rules because it was the right thing to do (how quaint!), and because they understood that reliability was in the best interest of all, and you couldn't expect others to respect the rules if you didn't follow them yourself. That's a way of functioning which the bureaucratic mind simply cannot conceive of, and yet it's the way most of North America functioned for more than a generation. And functioned very well, thank you, as the record clearly demonstrates. Politicization -- Now that the reliability infrastructure has made conformance with reliability standards "mandatory," which apparently it cannot legally do without governmental authorization, reliability's Pandora's box has been opened to politicians and bureaucrats. But, of course, this is the inevitable outcome of the regulatory takeover of the industry's own organizations. A federal "backstop," we are told, must be provided, government must review and sanction all standards, and reliability is OK as long as it doesn't get in the way of the market. The judgment of professional experts will be replaced by political expediency. Expediency -- Many of the industry's own organizations which were established for the purpose of promoting reliability have in essence sold their birthright. They have judged that the pragmatic course is to follow the politically correct approach, "if you can't beat Ãem, join Ãem." Some did this because they genuinely believed they had no alternative, and this was a less-than-perfect way to maintain at least some leverage vis-a-vis reliability. Some did it to survive. Some saw opportunities to build new empires. A few became "true believers." And some simply lacked the courage. All have been, in my view, misguided. The bottom line is this: we will see more blackouts. It may take just a few months, or it may take years (we are dealing with the subtleties of probability), but it will happen, make no mistake about it. If this is so, one might ask, how come so few people have said it?! Ah, there's the rub! Well, for one thing, engineers love order--and most of the people who would agree with me are also engineers. We don't like to rock the boat. We'd rather work from within, and we have a devotion to authority which is sometimes far too strong. Many believe that, given the present situation, the only way to help reliability is to work from within and try to make the best of a bad situation. And, some of us would like to keep our jobs! There's been a kind of blanket of silence thrown over the whole industry. It's not written down anywhere, but everyone knows that speaking out, even in private meetings, may, to paraphrase the Surgeon General, be dangerous to your career. Everyone knows, too, that decisions will be made at the top, and contrary opinions are not welcome; one organization actually bragged about turning itself into a "top down" organization. What happens next? Well, it's far too late to stop this train, no matter what happens in the near term. We'll all have to sit tight and hope for the best. And do what we each can--because, in the final analysis, that's all we can do
Quick question for you. Why is it that there are far more blackouts in Europe, where power is highly regulated, then in the US, where it is not highly regulated? I'll be interested to hear your answer.
You haven't read carefully: he is saying that "deregulation" is just a hype that in truth there have been more and more regulations that complexified the system (he is much more explicit on this point in other paragraph on his site I just copied an exerpt) ! The hypers used the term "deregulation" because it suits the american capitalist mentality whereas they use the term "regulation" in europe because it suits the socialist mentality but I doubt that there are much difference in the regulations since they GLOBALISE. To illustrate more how they play with term the term "liberal" in US means the left wing whereas the same term in Europe means the right wing so term by itself is just semantic what counts is the true reality ! You want hear me about Europe ? They are trying to make the resurrection of the ancient great Europe the one dreamed by Hitler so don't expect me to say anything kind about Europe and above all the future of Europe ! The level of corruption is incredibly high I think at the moment much higher than US, the difference is that with the socialist control people know the truth even less. So you have still some possibility to open your mouth it's a pity you don't but as the guy quoted above when you do you risk your career it's understable ! So let's say I'm opening my mouth for those who wouldn't dare to do so.