R i g h t a r d i a: NotionsCapital: Happy Enron Anniversary, Wendy Gramm

Sunday, December 20, 2009

NotionsCapital: Happy Enron Anniversary, Wendy Gramm

By Mike Licht

Eighth anniversaries are “Bronze Anniversaries,” and there have been few events more brazen than the collapse of the Enron Corporation. It happened eight years ago, and this ground breaking cataclysm would not have been possible without the assistance of Wendy Gramm, PhD.

As Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Dr. Gramm ended governmental oversight of energy derivatives traded by Enron and other companies.

Six days after leaving government, she was named to the Enron board of directors, where she headed the Audit Committee and was paid a million or two by the rogue corporation.

Dr. Gramm’s husband, Senator Phil Gramm, sponsored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which contained a clause making his wife’s regulatory decision law and deregulating new financial instruments such as credit swaps.

This undermined the financial system and enabled oil and energy speculation. Though he says he did not add the “Enron Loophole” himself, Enron had contributed $97,000 to Senator Gramm’s political campaigns.

Enron’s leadership manipulated the market, looted the corporation, and misrepresented company assets, with the complicity of its outside accountants.

Results: Collapse of the huge corporation and the accounting firm, billions in losses to investors and consumers, 30,000 Enron employees out of work with worthless retirement accounts. The resulting litigation lasted until this month.

Wendy Gramm continues to teach doctrinaire deregulation at a Virginia university; her husband works for a Swiss bank.

Rightardia comment: Have Americans forgottien the 'good old days." As of 2009, Gramm is employed by UBS AG as a Vice Chairman of the Investment Bank division. UBS AG recently settled with the IRS for $780 million. UBS AG and had been marketing tax-evasion strategies to 52,000 wealthy Americans.