Sorry, Kenny Boy, no canapes for you

TRIGAUX E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 6, 2002

No braised veal cheeks this year for poor Kenny Boy. No private Elton John concert. No schmoozing with kings. No backslapping of old buddies at the top of the Bush administration.

Lay was supposed to attend the elite and elitist five-day World Economic Forum. A billionaires' (and wannabes') club of sorts created to meet and discuss global economic issues, the forum traditionally gathers in chic Davos, Switzerland. Entrance fee: $25,000.

Instead, the annual forum gathered from last Thursday through this Monday at the heavily guarded Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (and a lot of fancy French restaurants) in New York City as a show of support for the hometown of 9/11's terrorist attacks.

And where was Lay? He's a bit distracted lately, dodging subpoenas and angry congressional panels that want to put the ex-chairman of Enron on the public hot seat to explain the shenanigans behind the country's biggest corporate bankruptcy.

Lay, who attended past Davos schmooze-fests, didn't even qualify for an invitation this year as a corporate titan, World Economic Forum spokesman Charles McLean says.

Once Enron filed for bankruptcy in December, well, it quickly became a case of . . . Kenny who?

Boy, did that red carpet get yanked in a hurry. It's got to be tough for Lay, going from pillar of the global deregulation movement to being pilloried as poster boy of global corporate overreach.

Anti-globalism protesters in New York seized on the symbolic and timely collapse of Enron as the perfect metaphor of corporate corruption. They held signs and an effigy of Lay outside a Manhattan office of Enron's troubled auditor, Arthur Andersen.

The gist of the protesters' message? Attendees at the economic forum, like their alumnus Lay, just want to loot the world.

Imagine the World Economic Forum's condolence note to Lay:

Sorry you could not make this year's smashing event, Ken. We're sending along some leftover canapes. But somehow, we felt you were here with us, anyway.

Here's "globalism" in a different light. Enron sought Chapter 11 in December, shocking its hometown of Houston. Then the Enron scandal went nationwide, becoming a target of federal lawmakers' wrath.

Now Enron's graduating to become the icon of U.S. greed 'round the globe.

If that sounds like a reach, consider this. Wall Street legend says the market will fall this year because the Super Bowl winner, the New England Patriots, is from the American Football Conference.

Surely, by comparison, the global demonizing of Lay and Enron is a shorter leap.

Protests against the World Economic Forum typically involve noisy rabble-rousers willing to smash things. This year, sensing the sympathy behind the forum's move to New York City and the hero status of New York police, protesters toned down their nastier activities.

Even the forum boasted of its newfound sensitivity to the world's little guys in the wake of Sept. 11 and the global recession. Forum spokesman McLean pointed proudly to a headline in the editorially conservative Wall Street Journal proclaiming, "Aura of social change cloaks economic forum."

Forum sessions that two years ago hyped the tech juggernaut of Silicon Valley were replaced this year with topics such as "Understanding Global Anger" or "Responding to Anti-Globalization: the New Role of Business."

Who could not be touched by such everyman subjects while nibbling desserts such as "banana-Manjari chocolate clafoutis with macadamian nougat" between police-led motorcades of black limousines?

In an Enron-inspired message, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, warned forum attendees that corporations must not get too cozy with elected politicians.

Enron poured millions in political contributions into Republican and, to a lesser extent, Democratic coffers. Lay himself was a "Pioneer" who raised more than $100,000 for the George W. Bush 2000 campaign. And he's George W.'s all-time top contributor.

"The real outrage is not that Enron violated the rules," Sweeney told the forum. "The real outrage is that Enron made the rules."

Michael Dell, head of Dell Computer, predicted Enron's bankruptcy would bring new pressure on companies to provide more financial information to investors.

Got to hand it to Ken Lay after all. Turns out he made much more of an impression on this year's economic forum by missing it.

- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8405.

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