In regard to the institutionalized corruption of our business environment I have recently stated that our stock market is a gambling casino as "the fluctuation of the corporation stock can be privately predicted by an array of managerial and policy decisions among which for example we have the selling or buying of assets, downsizing, oversizing, going bankrupt, merging and so forth." Also, I have recently reported that the Bush friendly Enron corporation had some 874 subsidiaries located in officially designated offshore tax and bank havens. Therefore, it was an easy task for Enron's executives and their accounting auditors to make the predicted mistake to mix 'debts' with 'owner's capital.'

It is my reinforced contention that our Free Market is intrinsically a gambling casino and the collapse of Enron is just another explanation for this gambling casino. And the casino played at Enron was cooked by Arthur Andersen, an accounting company with over $9 billion in sales and with some 85,000 employees in 84 countries. Enron's executives became rich as they sold their Enron's stock while showing phony profits in the books. These are excerpts of an anonymous letter dated August 24, 2001 directed to Enron's CEO Kenneth Lay. Last Monday, Sherron Watkins, a vice president of corporate development, confirmed that she wrote this letter.

"Has Enron become a risky place to work? For those of us who didn't get rich over the last few years, can we afford to stay?... I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals... I have heard one manager-level from the Principal Investments Group say, 'I know it would be devastating to all of us, but I wish we would get caught. We're such a crooked company...' employees question our accounting propriety consistently and constantly... we booked the Condor deals in 1999 and 2000, we enjoyed a wonderfully high stock price, many executives sold stock, we then try to reverse or fix the deals in 2001 and it's a bit like robbing the bank in one year and trying to pay back two years later. Nice try, but investors were hurt... I realize that we have had a lot of smart people looking at this and a lot of accountants including AA&Co have blessed the accounting treatment. None of that will protect Enron if these transactions are ever disclosed in the bright light of day."

References:

Financial Accounting Principles, by Larson, Miller, Zin, Nelson, second Canadian edition, IRWIN, page 7

Lack of Democracy in Saskatchewan and everywhere else: democracy is not the pursuing of the self interest of either groups or individuals, By Mario deSantis, January 12, 2002 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2001_500/desantis540/democracy.html

Sherron Watkins' letter to Ken Lay, CEO Enron (August 24, 2001) http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/news/layletter.pdf

The Enron Investigation, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM - MINORITY OFFICE. The sudden collapse of Enron Corporation -- formerly the seventh-largest company in the country, with 2000 revenues of over $100 billion -- has raised a number of questions. Serious allegations of fraud and self-dealing have been made against Enron's officers and directors, who reportedly sold over $1 billion worth of stock in the company from October 1998 through November 2001. Questions have also been raised about the company's close relationship to the Bush Administration. http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_enron.htm

Rank and Yank at Enron Or, the fine art of bankruptcy, by John Powers http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/08/on-powers.shtml