Enron’s Bankruptcy and the Bush Administration

Re “Connect the Enron Dots to Bush,” Commentary, Dec. 11: Robert Scheer says the “deregulation ideology, which George W. long had adopted as gospel, allowed dubious bookkeeping and other acts of chicanery” and that this was one of the main causes for Enron’s demise. He then calls for a congressional inquiry to look for connections between the Bush administration and the “debacle” of Enron.

The facts are deregulation allowed Enron to publicly trade a variety of commodities (including energy) and, as such, Enron was put in the position of guaranteeing fulfillment of trading contracts. The New York Mercantile Exchange requires traders to make large cash deposits in order to assure defaults don’t swamp the exchange. Enron did not do this. Enron also relied heavily on off-balance-sheet transactions, a technique used to keep debt off its books and to operate with little public disclosure. As a result, Enron was highly leveraged when its business started to decline and creditors lost confidence.

The blame lies on Enron’s senior management. Scheer should keep his political views out of future commentaries and stick to the facts instead of self-serving, misleading speculation.

Andrew Radden

Santa Monica

Like Scheer, I have wondered for some time, if it had been former President Clinton instead of President Bush, how long it would be for the right-wing brigade to scream for an independent prosecutor to investigate influence peddling yet again. Having watched this administration trample over some fairly basic rights with nary a peep from the right-wingers, I have come to the realization that it’s OK to do this stuff if you’re a Republican, but heaven help the Democrat who tries.

K.E. Weston

Lancaster

The precipitous collapse of Enron Corp. seems cloaked in accounting mystery. We know what the electric power traders like Enron did to our governor and our state, but do we know if CalPERS, the state employees’ pension fund, got back its investment in Enron?

Jack Weber

Oxnard