Opinion: Let Enron spark a call for fiscal responsibility

I agree that Enron failed in its responsibility to maintain integrity in the corporate world. But what really disgusts me is that the lawmakers who are outraged at the disgraceful behavior of Enron's executives are the very people who are driving our government into bankruptcy. They are threatening our Social Security and allowing bungling bureaucrats to spend millions studying the effects of cow gas on our atmosphere.

I was once told that when you point a finger, there are three pointed back at you. I would like to think that the failure of Enron executives to manage their books properly would be a wake-up call to all Americans to demand that our own lawmakers begin to live up to some token form of fiscal responsibility for themselves. But that would be uncomfortable for the comforted. If we really cared, then more than a mere fraction of the qualified voters would vote. And we would vote our moral pocketbook rather than for some empty 30-second sound bite. But we think our lawmakers are doing their job because they keep sending money our way so that we can get a slice of the bacon from their silly pet pork projects.

The Enron affair is full of fraud, waste and mismanagement. What grinds my gut, however, is the fact that the fox is trying to clean out the hen house and no one seems to care. I am comforted to know that our lawmakers are outraged at Enron's game of hide and seek. I can only hope that someday we will be as vigilant as voters and get the real hoodlums out of this country's checking account.
-- Craig Gross, Oldsmar

Where is the business leadership?

Re: Preventing another Enron, editorial, Feb. 12.

The reforms pushed in your editorial on the lessons and gaps exposed by the collapse of Enron are certainly ones investors would like to see, though many publicly owned businesses will protest the new regulations and the expected increased costs and possible rigidities.

What the editorial should have noted is that no business leaders or leaders of professional groups are among those seeking to redress the clear shortcomings in the investment and employee benefits areas. If only such stakeholders would more often be the leaders rather than the government and media.

In connection with the televised congressional hearings, there is a grim aspect that should not be ignored. There should be hearings, but we have overly virtuous legislators engaging in theatrics and making an absolute mockery of any executive who publicly exercises his Fifth Amendment right. As skeptical as I am of the Enron executives and the accountants, part of the media coverage and hearings simply dispense with the possibility of innocence or alternative explanations. The result is part circus and part public conviction.
-- James R. Gillespie, St. Petersburg

Paper losses merit no sympathy

I'm growing a little weary of the parade of Enron employees complaining of "losing their life's savings" of hundreds of thousands of dollars in their 401(K) plans, which have vaporized along with Enron's stock value. While I don't want to appear unsympathetic to their pain, a little reality check is in order.

The fact is that most of those losses were suffered only on paper. Enron employees who were around long enough to build up such sizable balances acquired most of their stock at prices more like $10 or $15 per share rather than the peak price of $90 -- from which they measure their losses. Moreover, a portion of their contributions was matched by Enron. So they were playing with some of the house's money as well as their own.

Their 401(K) plans benefited hugely from the unjustified runup of Enron's stock price, just as those same plans suffered accordingly when the bubble burst. I sympathize with them for their true out-of-pocket losses, but not for the inflated losses suffered only on paper.
-- Jerry T. Ratledge, Tierra Verde

Deregulation is the problem

Let's be honest, the root problem of the Enron debacle is deregulation by conservative government policies. Is our memory so short that we forget the deregulation of the savings and loan industry and its sleazy winners?

The Enron fiasco is nothing more than a manifestation of this failed policy. Deregulated by conservatives, Enron held Californians hostage to energy prices unsustainable by even the Saudis. Left without regulatory oversight, Enron bilked hard-working Americans of their savings while scamming millions for high-flying executives. Perhaps if we had continued to regulate corporations like Enron, none of this nightmare would be happening. When will we wake up to this pandering to free-market "greed"?

All of our politicians must decide: Do they sink with the greed of their corporate bosses or rise with the true fruit of this great country, everyday American workers? It's clear to me whom the conservatives have chosen as their bedfellows. Perhaps now we should choose ours.
-- Michael Blowers, Pinellas Park

Keep tabs on the executives

I hope the government is pulling the passports on the Enron executives currently under investigation. These people should not be let out of sight until this scandal is cleared up.

It would seem natural that the government should also push for a return of moneys sequestered by these people. The extravagant sums they walked off with were at the expense of shareholders and -- more important -- employees. The top executives should be volunteering to refund this money to its rightful owners, but so far there has been no outpouring of grief over their acts, much less a refund.

Also I would support the General Accounting Office in its demand for information on secret task force meetings between the vice president and Enron officials last year. There is no earthly reason for this government to maintain secrecy, other than its own conduct.
-- Edward Rapp, Inverness

Corruption costs all of us

How many Enrons are out there in this big and wonderful country of ours? Corporate America has gotten so big, so powerful, so influential, it is corrupting the very foundations of our ability to control its greedy self-serving interests. It all comes at the expense of the rest of us.

If this doesn't shake our senators and congressman to radically change the way elections are financed, the future for democracy seems bleak.
-- Jack Levine, Palm Harbor

We need public financing of campaigns

Re: Enron offshore ventures, by Sydney P. Freedberg, Feb. 4.

This is a story of how large corporations in our country surreptitiously are able to use their influence to avoid paying taxes and achieve "tax efficiency," which is really a euphemism for tax evasion and, if proven, could subject them to proper regulation or legal sanctions. When they don't pay taxes, "we the people" find ourselves subject to higher and higher income taxes to make up the difference.

Such anomalies come to exist in our form of government because we fail to follow the very spirit of our Constitution. Article I, Section 6 says, "The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, . . . paid out of the Treasury of the United States." This in spite of the fact that the legislators were to be elected as representative of their respective states.

If the founding fathers could have foreseen the horrendous cost of campaigning for election, it can logically be assumed that they would have included such costs to also be borne by the federal treasury whereby they could then be fairly apportioned and controlled.

As it is now, our legislators must seek campaign funds from whatever source available, thus naturally becoming beholden to the contributors who are usually large corporations, special interests and persons of great wealth who then gain the time and attention of our lawmakers. Here again, not only the spirit but the very letter of the Constitution come into question. Article IV, Section 4 reads: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of government." As it is now, we could more property be called a plutocracy instead of a democracy.

As to the costs to "We the People" of public funding of political campaigns, consider one such crisis. The savings and loan scandal of the late '80s. It cost our treasury $1.5-billion. The campaign money our five senators got was $1.5-million. Do the math, and you can see that for every dollar we gave the senators we would have saved a thousand dollars.

If that doesn't convince you, the following is a direct quote of Sen. John Glenn while addressing the subject on the Oct. 2, 1997, presentation of Meet the Press. "I think sometimes to clean up national campaign finances, the scandal of it, I think we'll go to some kind of federal financing of campaigns and I think we should. That will be the biggest bargain this country ever got."
-- W. J. Cichanski, Clearwater

Hold NPR accountable

The Feb. 9 column by Jeff Jacoby, A curious silence on National Public Radio, was quite an eye-opener. It pointed out the narrow thinking and highly subjective philosophy of the executives of NPR regarding Steven Emerson and the Investigative Project in Washington. How much more suppression of information takes place at NPR? "Knowledge is power," and it would appear that NPR wants the power.

Since some of America's tax dollars are used to support NPR and the salaries of producers, they should be held accountable. It would be useful for Jacoby to have listed the appropriate addresses of the NPR board and the agency that doles out its money. Then the public could respond in a more organized fashion. One letter to the editor is not enough.

"Accountability is a word that must be activated."
-- Carole C. Lucca, St. Petersburg

Let the kids have Harry Potter

Re: School panel clears use of Potter books, Feb. 5.

More power to the straight-thinking school curriculum committee in Pasco County. What a world we live in, where grown people actually believe in the magic and evil of witchcraft! Run away!

Come on. The Harry Potter series is fantasy, make-believe, as in not real! Oh no, but some believe that it is a way to sneak in and warp a child's mind. How about teaching your kids the difference between right and wrong?

Harry Potter is only a movie (or book series), a little imagination, if you will. And it is actually about good over evil.

I think the worst thing that one can do is to rob children of using their imaginations, of having a little fantasy in their lives. Lighten up with the holier-than-thou attitude and let a kid be a kid.
-- Garry Rosseter, St. Petersburg

Parent's objection is valid

I would like to raise my hand in support of Bill Nyland, the parent of the Mitchell High School student who felt that the Harry Potter series should not be a part of the school curriculum.

I wonder how the school would react if a teacher were to read to his/her students from the Left Behind series. After all, it is classified as a work of "fiction."
-- Norine Shaffer, New Port Richey

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