The Enron bankruptcy also led to massive losses for wealthy investors and stockholders. Among the many corporate investors are Citigroup and J.P. Morgan banks, which are expected to write off hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and other funds, and Massey Energy, the coal mining company.

Enron, once ranked seventh on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies with a stock valuation of $90 a share, declared bankruptcy in December. On January 15 the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in the shares, noting that they had fetched less than $1 over the previous consecutive 30-day trading period. Moves have begun to delist the company.

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into possible criminal activity by Enron or its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen LLP. Congress has also begun an investigation. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case after admitting that Enron had contributed more than $50,000 to his senatorial campaign in 2000. Enron, based in Houston, was one of the largest contributors to President George Bush's election campaigns, giving more than half a million dollars over the course of his political career.

The company also contributed to Democratic Party congressional campaigns. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, company executives joined other capitalists in successful efforts to promote the abolition of regulations governing the buying and selling of electricity and natural gas. Vice President Richard Cheney and other administration officials met with Enron executives on a number of occasions last year during hearings of the government's energy task force.

Although several administration officials say they received calls from Enron executives asking for a government bailout as the company unraveled, no evidence has yet been made public of any criminal wrongdoing by Bush or his cabinet members--just the "normal" dealings between a capitalist government and the big business it serves.

Robert Rubin, Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, did try to press the government to bail out Enron, according to press reports. Rubin, now the head of Citigroup, called a high-level official at the Treasury Department to see what could be done. Apparently no action was taken.

The New York Times advised Bush to "be forthcoming with Congress about any dealings [he or other administration officials] had with the energy company," and said that Democratic Congressmen "should resist the temptation to use the Enron saga for cheap political gain."

The main concern of the government probes and numerous articles in the big-business press is not to bring some justice to the thousands of employees fired by Enron.

In the wake of the company's collapse, the bosses fired some 4,300 of 7,500 Houston-area employees, leaving them without health insurance and with a worthless 401(k) retirement fund.

Employees, who were not permitted to divest themselves of their Enron stock, were forced to watch their pensions disappear as the company stock took a dive. To add insult to injury, while laid-off workers were offered a $4,500 severance package, top Enron executives and directors had sold their stock earlier for hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, just days before the bankruptcy filing, "retention bonuses" worth $55 million were given to 500 employees. Eleven received payments of between $500,000 and $5 million.

Instead, it is the activities of Enron, such as setting up limited partnerships that lost billions, and the conduct of its auditing company that are coming under scrutiny. In a five-year period to 2001, the company overstated its profits by $586 million. So far reports indicate that Andersen auditors helped obscure questionable business practices and mounting losses, and even shredded documents after the government investigation began.

The U.S. big-business press has spurred on the official investigations, giving the unfolding revelations front-page coverage. "In order to restore confidence in American capitalism and in the integrity of its financial markets, the public needs to understand what brought Enron down so suddenly last year," wrote the New York Times editors January 4.

Another editorial the following week returned to the theme, asserting that "investors, as absentee owners, must be able to trust the information public companies report about their businesses."

"This affair shows the accounting profession all too often to be in bed with the oldest profession," wrote conservative columnist William Safire January 14. "Self-dealing; asset-hiding; insider stock dumping--all these were supposedly beyond the ken of an audit committee and legal counsel blindly reliant on the ethics and standards of 'professional' accountants. It's a scandal, all right, and wrongdoers should pay in heavy civil damages if not jail time."
 
 
Related article:
Working-class response to Enron  
 
 
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