Lay gave the cause of Laissez-Faire capitalism a bad name. He <i>talked</i> like an Adam Smith/Ayn Rand/Murray Rothbard/Libertarian philosophy adherent, while in practice he made his money off cronyism, political pull, and other assorted unfair & uncompetitive tactics. So, screw him.
It's always the Mr. Rogers look-alikes that are the worst, for the very reason that they know ppl will find it hard to believe when/if they're ever exposed.
Just another dead crook. This one just happened to be very wealthy. Enron did great damage to many good people. Kinda hard to believe he died of "natural causes". If so, you got to give him credit for having great timing.
I think he gave the cause a bad name for other reasons, namely the crooked accounting being used. I don't know of any specific advantages he obtained that only applied to enron by buddying up to politicians. I was under the impression that the energy policies they advocated were just free market in general. The tactics used out west to cut off supply in one market to profit in another, that just seems to me to be the just rewards that regulators get when they set up a convoluted system that is called free but is anything but.
And if it wasnt for him thousands of people might not have had good salary for many years....Go to North korea and whine ya commie fuck wit...