Kenneth Lay died of a heart attack

[poohandwendy]

That is sad, prayers out to his loved ones. He was young, that is a shame.

 

[maddhatir]

hey- what comes around-- goes around.

KARMA IS A B***H now isnt it

no apologies here.......

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

it sure is

...but wouldn't it have been better if karma in this case would have been for him to have to live through paying the price?????

 

[yeartolate]

My condolences to his family.

But I still want him to serve his time. Put his corpse in the same cell as Skilling.


I know many will think I am going overboard about this, but there is no doubt in my mind that their thoughtless disregard for others caused the death of a few and placed many near retirement in a miserable situation for which these folks will pay the price for the rest of their lives. I do not consider what Lay and Skilling have done to be white collar crime.

Make actions like what Lay and Skilling did be a 25- life hard time offense with no chance of parole, then talk about privatizing social security.

Pass the popcorn please - no salt for mine.

 

[Mermaid02]

This isn't karma- EVERYONE is going to die. People with high stress lives/jobs very often have heart attacks. This was a merciful death frankly. Let's see- die of a heart attack in a couple of hours or spend the last years of your life in prison? I'd take the heart attack.

 

[Holly]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

 

[maddhatir]

This isn't karma- EVERYONE is going to die. People with high stress lives/jobs very often have heart attacks. This was a merciful death frankly. Let's see- die of a heart attack in a couple of hours or spend the last years of your life in prison? I'd take the heart attack.

high stress and MAYBE TOO MUCH GUILT!

maybe he could have lived a bit longer with the stress- but the GUILT? the guilt is probably what got him! so in my mind i LIKE to believe it was Karma that bit him in the butt!

 

[back2disney]

Mob finally got him. Sad

 

[JudicialTyranny]

Evidently, according to Tony Snow the official line is that Ken Lay was not a friend of Bush but merely someone Bush knew (and a number of people bush knows have died over the years).

Shocking! A 60-year old man knows people that have died! Maybe the Democrats should investigate!

BTW, a number of people Bill Clinton knew have died also - Arkancide!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

It is sad that he is dead as it is sad when anybody dies in that manner.

But my heart isn't aching for him--isn't really aching for his family either. I'm sure they loved him--but he was a slimeball who hurt many people and if it was his time to go. So be it.

I hope his estate can be attached for what the government wants to get from him. Things happen for a reason--maybe it will be easier for them to get his money as willing it to someone won't protect it.

 

[back2disney]

I worked for Enron for seven years and lost a considerable amount of money when Enron went bankrupt. For me I am just glad its all over and that I have gone on with my life. It hurts to think of what I lost but then again you just have to go on because there is nothing I can do about it.

Lay is not to blame for your lack of diversification. He is just a scapegoat or diversion from the tech bubble and crash.

 

[Charade]

A talk jock on clear Channell was asking people if they thought that he was really dead.

And on the left-wing talk radio station (that would be Airhead America) they were making fun of his death. And hear I thought the libs were the compassionate ones. Maybe Kennyboy had a bad childhood and just needed someone to talk to. Yanno, it probably really wasn't his fault he turned out to be a crook because it was in his genes.

Evidently, according to Tony Snow the official line is that Ken Lay was not a friend of Bush but merely someone Bush knew (and a number of people bush knows have died over the years).

Mrs. Bill Clinton and Mr. Hillary R. Clinton knew some that did too. Point???

Nice work Kyle

 

[Charade]

Shocking! A 60-year old man knows people that have died! Maybe the Democrats should investigate!

BTW, a number of people Bill Clinton knew have died also - Arkancide!

You beat me to it JT.

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is the transcript of today press conference with Tony Snow with respect to Key Lay
_______________
Q: What has been the President’s reaction to the death of Ken Lay?

SNOW: I really have not talked to him about it. I will give you my own personal reaction, which is that when somebody dies, you leave behind those that grieve, and I think that they deserve our compassion. But — I don’t know, what do you think would be the appropriate thing to say?

Q: I do not know. I don’t know him. The President was his friend, not me.

SNOW: No, the President has described Ken Lay as an acquaintance, and many of the President’s acquaintances have passed on during his time in office. Again, I think that it is sort of an interesting question but not answerable by me.

 

[jodifla]

You beat me to it JT.

So, poor Tony Snow has to lie already in his new role. The documentary THe Smartest Guys in the Room shows footage of the Bushes going on and on and on about how good a buddy Ken Lay is to the Bush family. I think it was some sort of birthday tribute to Lay.

The Bush family knew him quite well, and worked to to encourage all the loopholes Enron took advantate of.

 

[escape]

Lay is not to blame for your lack of diversification. He is just a scapegoat or diversion from the tech bubble and crash.

Let's not forget that he managed to sell off his stock when others couldn't.

Personally, I do feel for his family...in the sense that they lost a family member.

 

[back2disney]

Let's not forget that he managed to sell off his stock when others couldn't.

Personally, I do feel for his family...in the sense that they lost a family member.

Not his fault, insider trading is much worse and occurs all the time.

 

[brerrabbit]

Lay is not to blame for your lack of diversification. He is just a scapegoat or diversion from the tech bubble and crash.

How can you say this? You have no earthly idea how I was or am invested. The money I lost at the crash was stock held by Enron in my name that I could not withdraw, sell, or otherwise diversify. I diversified plenty after I left the company. My loss as a result was only a little over $200k. Had I done nothing with my portfolio I would be whining about the lose of over $4.8 million. Thousands of employees who were still working at Enron and less than 50 years old had no opportunity to diversify their Enron holdings as that is Federal Law. Think about what you say before you make sweeping statements about things you don't know anything about.

 

[escape]

Not his fault, insider trading is much worse and occurs all the time.

Are you saying that it's not his fault that he didn't get charged with insider trading?

From the Houston Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/3755388.html

March 28, 2006, 11:48PM

The sneaky withdrawal of Ken Lay
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

The Enron trial broke for halftime Tuesday as prosecutors rested their case and jurors were left with a lingering image: Joanne Cortez crying in a stairwell.

You probably hadn't heard of Cortez before Tuesday, but she is among the thousands who worked in obscurity at Enron, guided by something in short supply in the executive offices: integrity.

Her title was "senior specialist," and she monitored the revolving lines of credit that Enron extended to its chairman, Ken Lay, and several other top executives.

Under an arrangement with Enron's board, Lay could repay his loans from the company with Enron stock. By August 2001, after Jeff Skilling resigned as chief executive, Cortez said she noticed Lay used stock to repay the entire $4 million on the credit line with stock, then borrowed the same amount the next day. The pattern of borrowing and repaying with stock continued into the fall, Cortez said.

"It made me question if this was being used as somewhat of a tool to sell shares," she said.

Bingo. More specifically, Lay was using it to convert his Enron stock into cash, to monetize his holdings, which were falling in value. Normally, a corporate officer would have to report stock sales to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but by selling shares back to the issuer, Lay wasn't required to.

Log of deception
As Lay's secret fire sale continued, Cortez became more suspicious, and she began to document the transactions, logging every loan, every repayment with stock.

The results were stunning: In 2001, Lay borrowed a total of $77 million from Enron. He eventually repaid, with stock, about $70 million, Cortez said.

Cortez said she became increasingly concerned as the transactions picked up in August and September 2001, in part because investors had no idea what Lay was doing.

Then in mid-October, just before Enron employees found themselves locked out of their 401(k) plan and unable to sell their own stock, Cortez learned that Enron's board increased Lay's line of credit by $3.5 million. That's what sent her sobbing into the stairwell.

"I walked down the stairwell to blow off steam. I was upset. I cried," she said. "I was very upset that his line of credit increased to $7.5 (million) when the company was in so much trouble."


She didn't sell
Cortez was herself an Enron shareholder. She'd been buying the stock through payroll deduction. Unlike Lay, though, Cortez said she never sold.

"I didn't think I should do that," she said. She worried that sales based on her knowledge of Lay's loans could constitute insider trading.

"It's a clear indication that something is going on, for the CEO to be selling so much stock," she said on the stand. "I felt that it wasn't public knowledge, that shares were being sold back to the company to repay his line of credit."

Cortez checked the company's proxy statement for the previous year and found it claimed Lay had repaid his credit line in full. Which he did, and then drew it down again. At Enron, partial truth passed for full disclosure.

So Cortez took her records of Lay's transactions and contacted a lawyer, who in turn gave them to the FBI.

The defense tried to explain Lay's actions. He needed the money to meet margin calls on other investments. Not entirely. Some of the money was used to pay off the mortgage on his River Oaks condo, according to bank records produced by prosecutors.

Besides, Lay agreed to more detailed disclosures of his loans for the 2001 proxy, his attorney said. Of course, we'll never know because Enron collapsed long before it filed the proxy, and long after Lay had cashed out. It's just another unfulfilled promise, like the $7 million for which Lay stiffed his own company in its final days.

Two-faced talk
After court, Lay's attorney, Mike Ramsey, said the testimony was a "unique situation in which the government ended its case with a charge that doesn't exist."

He means that Lay isn't charged with insider trading, which is true. He's charged with conspiracy.

Lay's sales came as he told shareholders and employees that things had never been better, as he implored them to buy the stock. The sales show a man preparing for the end he knows is coming, that he knew that Enron's financial decay had grown fatal.

Down a stairwell, sobbing, so did Joanne Cortez.

 

[back2disney]

How can you say this? You have no earthly idea how I was or am invested. The money I lost at the crash was stock held by Enron in my name that I could not withdraw, sell, or otherwise diversify. I diversified plenty after I left the company. My loss as a result was only a little over $200k. Had I done nothing with my portfolio I would be whining about the lose of over $4.8 million. Thousands of employees who were still working at Enron and less than 50 years old had no opportunity to diversify their Enron holdings as that is Federal Law. Think about what you say before you make sweeping statements about things you don't know anything about.

Anyone who holds all there funds in the their companys stock is not diversified. If you didn't then I wasnt talking to you.