Ken Lay Dies of Heart Attack

[Woolen Horde]

nm...

[Matthew Gallant]

It's a trick. Get an axe.

[Woolen Horde]

It's a trick. Get an axe.

I was thinking the exact same thing.... plus a DNA test... just to be sure we have the right corpse.

[Charles]

Now we can administer the death penalty and just *pretend* he's alive. No moral quandry!

[Midnight Son]

He will be ceremonially shredded this weekend.....

[snowcrash22]

He was buying a face/off......John Travolta died on the operating table with Kenneth Lay's face.

[Timemaster Tim]

Well, Mr. Lay proclaimed " I don't fear jail because I know I'm not guilty. I know I did nothing wrong. I did nothing criminal and I also believe my God will get me through this."

Perhaps God has decided.

[Robert Sharp]

Actually, his mistake was that his god wasn't nearly as powerful as the gods of those he screwed over.

[noun]

Well, crap. Now Tyjenks and I will NEVER get to settle our bet.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I think I'll feel more remorse when Saddam Hussein dies.

[Midnight Son]

I think I'll feel more remorse when Saddam Hussein dies.

Dubya's gonna pardon him for oil money. Mark mah words!

[Jasper]

Bastard got off way too easy.

[Bob Cherub]

Surprising talk for a bunch of bleeding hearts who oppose the death penalty for 8-time rapists and child murderers.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Surprising talk for a bunch of bleeding hearts who oppose the death penalty for 8-time rapists and child murderers.
I don't recall signing that membership form, Bob. And the will of the government imposing death upon those deemed guilty in its flawed judicial system isn't the same as a white-collar scumbag equivalent dropping dead of God's smiting han^H^H^H^Hnatural causes.

[Uncle Larry]

I think Justice should take a mulligan on this one.

[VegasRobb]

I think it's amazing the negative effect he had and will have on the lives of millions of people. Is he the argument for increasing the penalties for committing white collar crime? Then again Keating came and went, leaving tens of thousands of victims and forcing the entire nation to foot the bill for his trangressions.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

I support the death penalty, though not for street crimes or crimes of passion. However, I think that in Lay's case, some kind of punishment involving poverty would have been ideal. Let him spend the rest of his life locked into a filthy factory in Southeast Asia, sewing my shoes for pennies. So news of his death leaves me feeling a little cheated.

[JMR]

I foresee a lot of bowel movements taking place over his grave.

[Dave47]

So, it turns out Ken Lays die. I didn't know that. I though they lived forever. The thing is, I think it’s probably all the foods they’re feeding them, because these Ken Lays in Washington, they’ve got them eating things like, you know, hotdogs, cheese popcorn, hot butter, um, dipped licorice...

[Kool Moe Dee]

I recently finished reading The Smartest Guys In the Room, and the authors made it seem like the worst crime Lay was guilty of was intentionally looking the other way and deliberately remaining ignorant of what other board members were doing. Fastow was portrayed as the real bad guy of the Enron debacle, and Skilling as more delusional than truly slimy.

[Tyjenks]

Well, crap. Now Tyjenks and I will NEVER get to settle our bet.

Hehe. I had forgotten about that.

Jasper beat me to my first thought yesterday. Well, mine was actually, "Fucker got off way too easy", but whatever.

Well, down here in the south we had our own Enron with HealthSouth and Richard Scrushy. People lost there life savings. Executives got rich and the like. Fifteen people go to jail under him and he claims he had no idea what was going on. He gets off.

Last week, he was up on other charges with our lovely, former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, for various political crimes with money, favors, etc. involved. Both were found guilty this time around. I would really prefer they both see some jail time and maybe the occasional anal rape. If they died, I would really be dissapointed.

I am issuing a cease and desist order on, yet another, death penalty debate. The other 25 threads have not resolved anything, so what say you guys just go back and re-read those and pretend like it was repeated here, inserting the late Mr. Lay's name in the blanks.

And so ends my ill-timed return to P&R. Farewell you bunch of argumentative freaks. [winkie]

[Damien Falgoust]

I recently finished reading The Smartest Guys In the Room, and the authors made it seem like the worst crime Lay was guilty of was intentionally looking the other way and deliberately remaining ignorant of what other board members were doing. Fastow was portrayed as the real bad guy of the Enron debacle, and Skilling as more delusional than truly slimy.Indeed.

And while I have no tolerance for Enron's shenanigans, let's not forget that Lay contributed enormously to improving the efficiency of the energy markets. Natural gas distribution used to be a slothful, inefficient, sleepy industry until Lay took a small company called Houston Natural Gas and transformed it into what eventually became Enron. The idea of creating trading markets for energy was a fundamentally good one, and was one that Lay was in large part responsible for.

Would I have liked to see Lay do prison time for his crimes? You betcha. But I have no desire to dance (or, per JMR, defecate) on the man's grave, either. I'll just remember that the man was part of a big corporate crime, but made some substantial contributions as well, and leave it to history to sort out what defines his legacy.

[Matthew Gallant]

Answer: the crime.

[jeffd]

Smartest Guys in the Room is an awesome book. And yeah, Lay was more of a boob than anything else.

[RepoMan]

I really dug Smartest Guys in the Room also. But I have a weakness for tales of catastrophe and hubris. (Reading _Inviting Disaster_ now, plenty of hair-raising stories in that one too.)

Any other business books with the same page-turnability as SGitR?

[Squirrel Killer]

I foresee a lot of bowel movements taking place over his grave.
They thought of that. (http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/07/news/newsmakers/enron_lay.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes)

[Donald L.]

Kenneth Lay's Conviction Erased From Record (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101700808.html)

A federal judge in Houston this afternoon wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his estate.

[olaf]

I read that this is sort of common, getting a conviction expunged if you die before you can appeal it. Maybe it is, maybe it isnt. It still feels like a double helping of bullshit in this case.

[Aleck]

Jesus fucking christ. This is just ridiculous.

[Not One Of Us]

And here I expected a report on a zombie Ken Lay with the resurrection of this thread.

[Rob Beschizza]

Can't libel the dead.

Get cracking.

[extarbags]

I read that this is sort of common, getting a conviction expunged if you die before you can appeal it. Maybe it is, maybe it isnt. It still feels like a double helping of bullshit in this case.

Yeah, it's pretty fucking disgusting.

[Hanzii]

Kenneth Lay's Conviction Erased From Record (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101700808.html)


That's a cool precedent. He steals a bunch of money and by having the curtesy of dying before appeals his heirs get to keep it.
If I was American I'd ask my dad to rob a bank in a few years tme...

[Damien Falgoust]

Please note: the conviction is expunged, but that doesn't prevent civil suits against Lay's estate.

It makes those cases a little harder to prove, since you can't just point to the criminal conviction as evidence of Lay's wrongdoing. But it doesn't mean Lay's heirs can breathe easy and resume skiing in Vail.

It also means Hanzii shouldn't try his plan, even if he was American.

[unbongwah]

But it doesn't mean Lay's heirs can breathe easy and resume skiing in Vail.
That kinda sucks: Kenny does the crimes and croaks, his heirs are left cleaning up after him. Not that they should get to keep Daddy's ill-gotten gains, but neither should they be the ones left holding the bag of poo, either. [Presuming they weren't complicit, of course.]

[FIDGAF]

WTF...

[chet]

unbongwah, you never heard his wife talk have you? She deserves to get sued and fall down a few flights of stairs.

Chet

[extarbags]

That kinda sucks: Kenny does the crimes and croaks, his heirs are left cleaning up after him. Not that they should get to keep Daddy's ill-gotten gains, but neither should they be the ones left holding the bag of poo, either. [Presuming they weren't complicit, of course.]

What? They aren't saddled with anything except money. If they do get sued, all they have to do is happily give all of the money over, and they won't have to deal with it ever again. What do you want to bet his poor heirs take that course of action?

[Johan123]

The guy is dead...have at least a modicum of respect for the dead. Yeah, he did some lousy stuff, but you can bet his wife and kids are hurting right now (and have been for a while with this whole ugly situation...not of their choosing, but his). Give 'em a little bit of a break. Have a heart. They're going to get reamed in civil court anyways, so you'll get your pound of flesh...really.