Aw, I feel so sorry for poor put-upon Ken Lay. He didn't know there were bad, dishonest people running his business. He didn't realize he was out-of-the-loop and they weren't being straight w/him. He had NO IDEA his company was going down the shitter and taking everybody who trusted him w/it. Poor little fella, he was sitting at the children's table the whole time. How could he have known what the grownups were doing? "They twicked me! Those big meanies! Waaaaaaaa! That wasn't vewy nice! Mommy, make the bad men stop!" Ignorance is BS. What a scumbag. Harold
have you ever had to delegate? not that the delegator is free of any responsibility, nor should he be ignorant of the overall strategy and means, but mice sometimes play when cats are away. hopefully we'll find out just how much hands-on the guy had. but count on this being politicized (interesting timing) so be sure to read between the lines.
I certainly don't side with Lay and his crew BUT it is/was the GREEDY investors who are also to blame! They encouraged and many times DEMANDED that managements screw around in order to "grow" earnings and enrich themselves. As long as things were going up it was a hell of a party. When things went the other way, those same RETARDED investors blamed "the other guy", as usual.
>> but mice do play when cats are away. << I've owned and managed several small businesses. No, it's not the same thing, but it's the same principle. This ain't about delegation. To claim utter ignorance while a multi-billion dollar company crumbles to pieces around you is nothing short of laughable and nothing less than contemptible. Harold
Also, I imagine it doesn't help Mr. Lay's claim of ignorance that he was privately selling his Enron shares while publicly proclaiming they would go to the moon.
But think about...which company president/ceo will say that he's company's shares are overvalued and no one should buy at "this" price? It would be like an American president proclaiming the country is doomed because of this or that. It can't/won't happen.
Ballmer said microsoft shares could be overvalued routinely Jimmy Carter's malise speech is an example of a U.S. President saying that our country is just a former good country and there is nothing we can do about it. I reread it a few years ago and it was amazing. That is why Reagan's new begginning and the hockey team winning were so important.
there's no shortage of blame to go around. frankly, Enron employees who got their "savings" flushed got what they deserved - it took a hell of a lot more than one person to stage that fake trading floor. everybody in the company is complicit in the fraud...
Regardless, it will not be a selling feature in his defense, and will not be dismissed as a moot point. And no matter what kind of spin you choose to put on it, it will not lose its reptilian "appeal." If he feared that the share prices were overvalued (a legitimate fear that he, in fact, acted on), he could have been a bit more circumspect publicly, or at least more "balanced" in his statements. Instead, he was unequivocally positive in a big way. No, my friend, Mr. Lay is destined to reside in a gated community for a while .
but it is about delegation. that's why it's so important to choose people who have integrity to run the company you own/chair/lead. it's also about leadership. and that's what a trial is for: to vet the facts about his culpability as a leader. further, and this has been said elsewhere (though mostly ignored), the california regs created a market that was bound to screw them. i don't suppose anyone would argue that there is any culpability there. I am only a casual observer, but I would, because I believe that their regulation was inept.