Remora

James Ridgeway, Village Voice's reliably left (if sometimes monotonous) political columnist, suggests something pretty cool in his column today. Ridgeway raps on the practical impunity surrounding the major looters of corporations. This means, rather predictably, wheeling out the very specimen and macrocosm of power used corruptly to avert justice: Ken Lay. Ridgeway hammers on this old theme. But then Ridgeway departs from merely adding his scolding to the unanimous condemnation of mankind and throws out an idea that should be embraced by some Dem, somewhere. This is the kind of idea that could really work:

"Beyond the political will to hold people like Lay accountable, we need a mechanism for going after the companies themselves, paving the way for placing them in receivership so they could be managed under public supervision until their acts were cleaned up. There is nothing unusual in this notion. Crooked unions go through it all the time. Corporations should get the same treatment. At the very least, firms with shoddy accounting and other dubious practices should be denied government business. For Enron, federal subsidies and contracts were the lifeblood that let the corrupt operation flourish. "

Ridgeway could easily have developed his idea a bit with regard to Enron. There was an interesting article last week in the Houston Chronicle about the way in which, in the last month of Enron's run, workers from the old pipeline division -- which was despised by the minions of Skilling, all of whom were New Economy rip-off artists who wanted to run an "asset-less' company, but battened like leaches on the money flow of the pipes (the only real money flow at Enron, except the continuous rain of currency into the pockets of the undeserving exec strata) --- anyway, how in a last burst of kick em in the teeth, these old reliable asset guys were cheated out of their deferred compensations in favor of the energy trader division. This division, by the way, was losing money. Anyway, according to the Chronicle article, Lawrence "Greg" Whalley, "then the chief operating officer of the company," made decisions that systematically skewed distribution of the money that was left in the deferred compensation accounts to those who, in Whalley's lawyer's rich phase, were "continuing to add value" to the company.

Now who were those people who were adding value to the company? Why, they were part of the trading group that was eventually sold to UBSWarburg -- which, coincidence of coincidences, is where Whalley ended up himself. So here we have a company, the heart of which is a money losing deal machine that is still sexy enough to be packaged and sold to another company. [note: the energy trading outfit did look enough like a moneymaker at the time, given the smoke and mirrors of Enron's accounting, to be perceived as a valuable asset -- hence its acquisition. And with the correct management, it might actually be an asset. But the real assets, what Enron sold to raise real cash, were the natural gas pipe lines. Period] Here we have people who were dispersed over the multiple trading divisions (such as the loony broadband division) who have bootstrapped their entire careers and credibility on the cash flow coming from the real assets of the company, the pipes. And we have those same usurping locusts, as the Psalmist might put it, who were systematically infiltrated into top managerial positions, reluctantly deciding that the retiring pipemen -- the guys who made real money -- are going to have to bite it, because Whalley's clique are skipping ship and want to carry home a few mill in Christmas money.

This is exactly parallel to corrupt Teamster union locals that have been taken over by the feds. The same principle of pirates at the top looting people at the bottom.

If Ridgeway's plan were put into execution, it would put a stop to self aggrandizing deals for the scum of the universe... ooops, I mean the up and coming entrepeneur types, like Greg Whalley. As for the Whalley's, one's mind drifts to ... uh, pornographic fantasies of punishment. How about having these hardballing execs prove their ability to 'add value' to their future employers by being stripped of all their assets, including their wardrobes, appropriately draped in street couture (say, urinous old trousers found abandoned under some park bench), their ATM cards and platinum credit cards sheered through, their cars long ago seized and sold, and set loose then on some mean Houston alley at three in the foggy morning. Then let these top dogs ply their ingenuity as they will.