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Enron and Market Manipulation ...

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  • #16
    Gatekeeper, I just read this in the NYTimes about ten minutes ago. Got my blood boiling all over again.

    Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown

    Timothy Egan
    The New York Times
    February 4, 2005



    EVERETT, Wash., Feb. 3 - In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.

    The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's larger experiment with deregulation.

    The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and 2001.

    In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader the public utility identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak energy demand.

    "This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing," Mr. Williams says on the tape. "We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down." After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada official questioned the reason. "O.K., so we're just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?" Rich asks. "And that's cool?"

    "Hopefully," Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh.

    The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western power grid.


    Officials with the Snohomish County Public Utility District in Washington State, which released the tapes, said they believed Enron officials had taken similar measures with other power plants. This tape, they said, was proof of what was going on.

    At the time, power plants in the greater West Coast grid were under a federal emergency order to keep their plants running.

    A spokeswoman for Enron, Jennifer Lowney, would not comment on the tapes, citing a blanket policy of the energy trading company, which is operating under bankruptcy protection and facing multiple criminal and civil proceedings. "We continue to cooperate with all ongoing investigations," she said.

    Conversations between energy traders and power plants were routinely recorded to give a record of transactions. The tapes were part of a large seizure of evidence by the F.B.I. The Snohomish County utility, which is in a court battle with Enron, obtained them through a legal action.

    Previous tapes released by the district last summer showed Enron officials joking about how they were "stealing" more than a $1 million a day from California and fleecing "Grandma Millie" while bringing Enron record profits.

    Other tapes released on Thursday showed Enron executives discussing their fear of going to jail for manipulating power markets in Canada and the United States. And memos showed that Enron practiced as early as 1998 to create artificial shortages and run up prices and extend the market manipulation to Canada.

    Three former Enron traders have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges of fraudulently manipulating the West Coast energy market. Enron's former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, and former president, Jeffrey K. Skilling, are under federal indictment for fraud.

    In cooperating with federal officials, West Coast traders have told how they devised schemes named "Death Star" and "Get Shorty" to make billions of dollars out of California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation.

    But until the tapes were released on Thursday, there had been few public details of how Enron set in motion the phony power shortages.

    Company officials had long denied that they illegally shut down plants to create artificial shortages. In March 2001 - two months after the recording showed how the Nevada plant was shut down- Mr. Lay called any claims of market manipulation "conspiracy theories."

    Memos uncovered by Snohomish County also show that Enron rewarded midlevel executives based on their performance in manipulating the West Coast market.

    The tapes and memos were filed this week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as part of a broad investigation into how much money was lost by Enron market manipulation. Snohomish County is seeking to void a $122 million lawsuit by Enron over an energy contract the utility said was based on fraud.


    Gentlemen, you may now remove your tinfoil hats. It really WAS a deliberate conspiracy!

    I keep thinking that China is becoming more like the US and the US is becoming more like China.
    Official Homepage of the HiRes Graphics Patch for Civ2

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    • #17
      I TOLD YOU SO!
      Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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      • #18
        Originally posted by mindseye
        It really WAS a deliberate conspiracy!
        There is no such thing as a conspiracy! You are loony!
        I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
        - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

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        • #19
          I posted this in another thread, but let's get another small dose of endorphins ...
          Attached Files
          Official Homepage of the HiRes Graphics Patch for Civ2

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Agathon
            I don't understand you Oerdin, you complain about the lack of accountability and the rampant criminality, but you seem happy with a political and economic system that allows the clowns to get away with it. These people are wrist-slapped and then inevitably get back to their robbing ways.
            That's the thing Sava. I don't want wrist slapping I want Key Lay in jail being ass rapped by a large man who's nickname is the booty bandit.

            If we can get honest people in office then the system can be reformed to work for the people. I'm not willing to toss the baby out with the bath water like you commiues.
            Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Oerdin


              That's the thing Sava...
              !

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              • #22
                Originally posted by mindseye
                I posted this in another thread, but let's get another small dose of endorphins ...
                He looks too good there. He should look like Saddam coming out of the bunker.
                I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Oerdin


                  That's the thing Sava. I don't want wrist slapping I want Key Lay in jail being ass rapped by a large man who's nickname is the booty bandit.

                  If we can get honest people in office then the system can be reformed to work for the people. I'm not willing to toss the baby out with the bath water like you commiues.
                  That's the thing Fez. What good is putting honest people in charge of a dishonest system?
                  I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                  - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by JohnT


                    !
                    I think it was a fraudian slip. I honestly didn't mean to do that.
                    Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

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