Having been a demonstator during the Los Angeles visit, I can verify that the scene was surreal. There was no more interest in Corporate Responsibility (was there ever, aside from scoring faux populist points?), only in raising big bucks for another Republican wing-nut. Of course, there wasn't a word about the Enron originated energy crisis. Although Bush attempted some snide remark on that issue, his political advisors quickly reminded him of how vulnerable he is here about that.

>>Of course, there wasn't a word about the Enron originated energy crisis. <<

Can it really be established that causality runs in this direction? Despite massive expenses for stadiums and all, "Enron" never penetrated my own personal consciousness until AFTER the California energy crisis (which was alternately described as a financial crisis -- in that there was plenty of energy for those willing to pay exorbitant prices) and the state began withholding payment for energy delivered. Did Enron write the
"deregulatory" regulations that forbade long-
term pricing contracts and precipitated the spot market pricing spikes? (It could easily be -- sharp industry lobbyists have been known for drafting laws that blunter legislators ignorantly enact. But I don't remember seeing that particular pair of dots connected here.)

At the time, it seemed there were plenty of villains to blame -- most localized by state.
Hot weather in CA, dry weather in WA, bad transmission lines in NM, lazy regulators in
DC, and of course price gouging capitalists in
TX. Letting the whole problem collapse upon the now beaten shoulders of Enron seems to me rather fraught with the risk of allowing the mistakes to repeat. Particularly those by Regulatory and Legislative non-and-misfeasors, none of whom have suffered the handcuffs that Enron malfeasors do.

First, the jury award was a civil action, not a criminal one such as what we see with such companies as Adelphia, WorldCom, and Enron. In short, it is a contract dispute. Saying this is an example of corporate misdeeds would lead one to conclude that a great many businesses are run by crooks and charlatans. Frankly this kind of thinking is stupidly idiotic and anybody who does really think this probably also has a severe drooling problem.

Another thing to consider is that Davis has managed to fart away over 300 times the amount of the lawsuit due to complete and utter stupidity. Recently a budget was passed to address the $24 billion dollar deficit in the state.

Moreover, we have Davis' idiotic antics regarding the energy crisis in the state. One can claim that Simon would have done the same things, but the only problem is it wasn't Simon who did these idiotic things, it was the current governor, Gray "Low Beam" Davis.