Spin, lackey, spin! Aces, I think you need to get a dictionary, have somebody help you out with the multi-syllabic words and aquaint yourself with the difference between a contribution and a loan or buying naming rights. Additionally, you might want to get a 1st grade arithmatic primer or, better yet, just get a first grader to explain the difference between 100 million and 5.3 million. No, Harris County taxpayers stepped up big time when the Astros needed it. Enron didn't do a thing but buy some advertising and loan a billionaire some money. And if it weren't Enron, it would have been somebody else. Reliant Energy, Toyota, Minute Maid or one of the other enormous corporation that line up to slap their name on every new venue that pops up. You actually believe it's DIFFICULT to get a naming rights sponsorship for a major league ballpark? Are you REALLY that ignorant? Jeez, can't you even come up with your own adjectives? When all is lost, I guess repugnant liars such as yourself have to resort to labeling unassailable facts "rhetoric". Enron paid just over $5 million for the right to name the park Enron Field. The deal was signed nearly 3 years after the the referendum to build the park. Additionally, they LOANED another $5 million. They got that back sans interest. In a desperate attempt at rehabilitating the image of convicted thief and despicable douchebag, Ken Lay, you've had to stoop to trying to spin a "corporate sponsorship deal" into a "contribution". Pathetic. Your fervant hope that I lost money due to The Douchebag's thievery made my day, Aces. I'm far to competent to involve myself financially with the likes of Ken "Douchebag" Lay. Sorry to disappoint you, but please, keep on embarrassing yourself with your bald-faced lies about the Douchebag.
Colt -- i agree with most of what you said....but let's not pretend that an interest-free loan for $5 million isn't worth much. that saved the county a lot of money.
Yeah it saved some, but compared to the entire budget of a county, a few percents of interest on $5M isn't a ridiculous amount of money. Hell, $5M isn't a ridiculous amount of money to a county budget. I have a funny feeling that a county as large as Harris could get a pretty decent interest rate on a loan.
Let's also not pretend that Lay's assistance with the referendum campaign wasn't a very key factor in it passing (51-49).
very true. he footed the bill for a lot of that...and was ultimately the face in the business community telling everyone how great it would be to have a ballpark downtown.
Certainly. But it's a far cry from $100 million which is the figure Aces threw out there. It saved Enron (and Drayton) a lot of money as well. And Aces is strictly focusing on the naming rights agreement. Based on his poor attempt at explaining the funding of MMP, it would appear that he was completely unaware of the loan.
Actually, if you're talking about the money he made during the mid to late 90's (after Skilling and Fastow were brought in), then yes. Or at least the majority of it. Enron had very little actual cash flow during this period. All the money they "made" during this time was based on the stock price, which of course was heavily inflated due to their creative quarterly reports which showed money they projected themselves making later on down the line as actual profits for that quarter. Thank you Jeff Skilling and Mark to Market accounting. Also, much of their "profits" for this period were actually loans from banks in which they used (wrongfully inflated) stock shares as collateral. Of course, they reported these loans as earnings on their quarterly reports, which inflated the stock price, which made it easier to use more shares as collateral for more loans, which were reported as earnings, which inflated the stock price, which made it easier to use shares as collateral...well, you get the idea. So yes. Most if not all of the money Enron "made" during this time period was stolen.
I saw this while on vacation...Did he do some bad things, yes, but didn't deserve to die, although when its your time, its your time... I worked for Enron International and Enron was the best place to work in the mid to late 90's...I was very fortunate to work there...However, by cooking the books, it F'd up my life...A lot of people were hurt mentally and financially by this and I do want the people responsible to go to jail...
I think this quick test can help solve some of the arguements going on in here... Below is a list of some hardened "criminals" that have been prosecuted by the court of public opinion. Your task is to pick which individual/group you would like to be accompanied with on a trip to the back alley... a) gangster b) mexican mafia c) asian gangster d) terrorist e)
