Enron Corp. agreed to a $356 million settlement with about 20,000 current and former Enron employees who lost money in their retirement plans when the company collapsed in 2001, though they likely will see only a fraction of that amount.
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However, it is likely that participants will get only 15% to 20% of the claim, said Lynn Sarko, an attorney with Keller Rohrback in Seattle who represented the Enron employees, as the final amount paid depends on the total amount of assets available for distribution in the bankruptcy court.
Quick review: Enron faked profits through a variety of schemes (including its participation in the California energy scam) to pump up its stock price and create imaginary wealth which it then used to become the the largest contributor to Bush-Cheney 2000. Enron executives participated in secret energy policy meetings with Dick Cheney a month after he took office, the minutes of which are still secret despite court challenges.
After Enron's demise, Bush-Cheney went on to a second term proposing a massive privatization of Social Security assets (read: benefit cut) which would essentially divide the massive Social Security insurance pool into millions of tiny 401(k)-like puddles of assets. Privatization is essentially the opposite of an economy of scale — smaller accounts mean more, not less, administrative fees that significantly reduce long-term return. The Bush crock was sold to the American people on the premise that it's your money and you ought to decide how to invest it no matter how ill-informed you are or how little you have to do with the management of the concerns in which you invest.
And now we learn that in an analogous scheme former Enron employees will get 15% of their own money. Not of possible future benefits — they will only receive 15% of the money they paid into the system.
Here it is: a preexisting model for Bush-style privatization, courtesy of his largest contributor. The result is an 85 percent loss within five years.
And after jacking her utility bills and taking her retirement money, the sad irony is that the Bushies won't even let Grandma Millie call Dr. Kervorkian.
