No, not the company itself (although Enron does still technically exist).
I was speaking about the practices that Enron made famous.
Kenneth Lay liquidated more than $300 million in stock options while at Enron. Tens of millions of this was in the final months before Enron's bankruptcy, even while telling staffers to buy the stock.
Jeffrey Skilling, the other major Enron CEO, made $132 million in the year ending in 2001 alone. He is currently serving a 24-year, 4-month prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Waseca in Waseca, Minnesota.
You may remember Enron's partners in crime, the Wall Street investment banks, that the Supreme Court refused to allow investors to sue. They include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Merrill Lynch & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston and Barclays Bank PLC.
The investment bankers learned their lessons from this experience.
Here's how the major investment banks performed this year.
Note how many of the names in the Enron lawsuit also appear here. Now notice the same names appearing below.
Yet, even while the banks are losing money hand-over-fist, they are giving their executives record bonuses.
The top 5 investment banks will pay out a record $38 billion in bonuses in 2008 as the housing and mortgage crisis spirals out of control. Only in America will you see corporate executives that are rewarded with millions of dollars for making bad calls, bad deals and then when their employment is discontinued (either by force or by will), they are sent off into a cozy retirement with plush packages and bonus spiffs to last them forever.
Last year, CEOs at the big five investment banks took home the following bonuses:
• Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: $53.4 million
• Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack: $40 million
• Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal: $47.3 million
• Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld: $10.9 million
• Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne: $14.8 million
Only in America will you see billions of dollars dished out on Wall Street when we should be seeing indictments and arrests. The corporate culpability and off balance sheet accounting has been compared to that of the Enron scandal with comical mentions of "Lendron" that have been circulating around the internet.
You may remember reading about how the stock analysts, who gave Enron a "strong buy" rating right up until just before bankruptcy. You may remember how the rating agency gave said Enron was solvent until the weeks before bankruptcy. Remember the outrage?
Remember how this stuff was going to be reformed? Well, there were no reforms.
If you are old enough you might remember the S&L Scandal from the early 90's. There was outrage about that too. It was a huge taxpayer rip-off. There was going to be reforms.
So what happened? The banking system was deregulated and the government oversite was gutted, the exact opposite of what should have happened. And this happened under a Democratic Administration.
That is what is repeating today.
Why is this happening? Because the people in America don't care that they are being screwed. There is no outrage, not even on DKos.
Sure, people get real exited over the latest polls, McCain TV ads, or pictures of kittens. But when it comes to your financial future being stolen from you, well, you just can't be bothered. It's too hard to understand. It hurts your brain. It's much easier to get excited over the Edwards sex scandal that to understand how your children are being sold into debt slavery.
That's why you are getting financially raped again, and why you will be financially raped in the future. You didn't deserve it, but you let it happen anyway.
Note, these nasty comments aren't aimed at everyone. Just a majority.