----- Original Message ----- From: "vze3xykq" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 6:41 PM Subject: Re: Religion and ethics
> Right. My point would be that > > a) the employees were not limited to only Enron stock Enron employees were *strongly* advised to buy company stock. Its one of the big issues here in Houston. > b) they only ones who lost 90% would be ones who bought all of their shares > right at the end. "Hey look at all the money everyone is making, I better > shift all my funds to stocks!" By the time that employees were allowed to sell their stock, almost everyone had lost >50%, with many losing 70 - 80%. These are mainly retirement accounts remember. > c) in the same vein, they certainly weren't unhappy when the stock price > was going up. Sure, but the companies worth was falsely valued beforehand. All smoke, mirrors, and lies. > > (Don't know what you mean about the "there are reports that common (the non > upper-executive) employees were unable to excersize their employee-incentive > stock options" Are you saying these people were getting stock as bonuses > but couldn't sell them? Or....) Wait, I did just find a article saying that > regular employees who wanted to sell their stocks were told that the > retirement plan was frozen during a management change, but the upper levels > were still able to sell. That is horrible. You just found an article citing this? Jeez Louise, that was one of the main complaints lodged after Enrons collapse. There were congressional investigations and committees devoted to just this subject. All widely publicised. > > >From what I know about retirement plans, and it used to be a lot, the most a > company could force on an employee was make matching funds in the companies > own stock. So that's free stocks, which do not show up in the income > statements. And that's only at the most 12 - 15% of their total retirement > package. If you do a bit of investigation you will find that that there is a very serious question about collusion between the banks that financed Enron and Enrons marketing dept. It seems that Enron had these banks pushing Enron stock on various "Funds". This is a pretty serious conflict of interest. > > Understand this: I don't agree with the rah-rah sessions they had, it does > look like the company was trying to get the employees to buy company stock. According to Enrons Houston ex-employees they were fairly pushy about it. > Again, you didn't see many frowns when a ten dollar stock goes up to ninety. > But that does not mean the employees had to purchase one single share, does > it? I think its the sheer volume of dishonesty that irks so many people. When you buy a stock you know you are taking on some risk, but people who bought Enron stock were more or less set up to take a loss. I kind of take it for granted that you non-Houstonians are aware of the incredibly humongously gigantic balls sported by Enron management. There are instances of them setting up a more or less fake company, attracting investors, putting in a couple of thousand dollars of their own, a week later profiting 100K or so, dumping some Enron debt on the fake company, and washing their hands of it. Why Anderson ever allowed this is beyond me, unless they were in on the schemes. > > And unfortunatly 'options' are the way to go. How many Microsoft millionares > are there, people who got stock at >dollar and were able to sell it later > for 50 to 100 times that? Other companies see that, and the employees, and > want the same thing. I think this is the driving force behind all the corruption that has showed up lately. It makes me think that there needs to be some sort of barrier between investors and management, though I dont expect that to be a popular idea. > > Hey it sucks for me too. My money is all in one basket and has lost almost > half of it's value, and I don't have the money now to buy, to dollar cost > average my losses. But I'm not looking to get rich quick either. I'll be > glad (and lucky) to get a 6% gain this year. We have 6 years of 22% gains > and people start thinking it's forever. > The company I work for is owned by Tyco. Tyco is in much the same situation as Enron or Worldcom. xponent Bastards Maru rob
