After reading Pipe Dreams by Robert Bryce, I knew everyone involved in the Enron scandal deserved to be sent to prison. And not a fenceless white-collar prison, but a dank facility where murderers constantly size them up and maggots wallow in their morning gruel.
Those Enron effers not only felt entitled to steal astronomical sums of money, but thought they would get away with it. They are essentially leeches who contribute nothing to society because they cannot control their greedy-bastard egos.
Take Lea Fastow, wife of CFO Andy Fastow. She took it upon herself to make bad artistic investments and decorate Enron’s offices despite the impending bankruptcy: The Fastows were the driving force behind an amazing art-buying binge. They spent $575,000 on a soft sculpture by Claes Oldenburg. They paid $690,000 for a wooden sculpture by Martin Puryear, a record amount for his work sold at auction… by August and September 2001, the company had spent about $4m on 20 different pieces.
She fancied herself a real bit of culture, this one. Then, Lea helped hide her husband’s crimes, for which yesterday she was sentenced to a mere YEAR in prison. Her husband, indicted on what eventually grew to 98 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, money laundering and others for engineering widespread schemes to hide debt, inflate profits and enrich himself on the side, got 10 years in prison.
Welfare Moms we vilify… Drug Addicts we lock up… Prostitutes we marginalize… Martha Stewart we crucify… but Enron crooks we slap on the wrist? If this country strives to be a capitalist democracy, we cannot tolerate criminal acts of corporate greed. Just because a crime is non-violent does not mean it is victimless. Ask the people who lost their retirement funds because this rich bitch bought art.
