Brown Sludge

Monkey On A Stick - Part II

May 25th, 2006

In honor of the GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS verdict for Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay and a guilty of fraud verdict for Jeffery “Asshole” Skilling – I’m reprinting from an earlier post :

On banana plantations in India, whenever a monkey is caught stealing from the crop – the farmer kills the monkey and then immediately impales the monkey’s body on a stick and places it in a prominent place to serve as an example to all the other monkeys who might be entertaining thoughts of stealing bananas.

From the movie “The Smartest Guys In The Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron” a transcript of two employees discussing the anger of California Ratepayers (graphic language) :

Employee #1: “They’re f*****g taking all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?”

Employee #2: “Yeah, grandma Millie, man. Yeah, now she wants her f*****g money back for all the power you’ve charged right up, jammed right up her a** for f*****g $250 a megawatt hour.”

I wonder :

I wonder if television images of orange jumpsuit clad energy executives being frog-marched off to federal prison will put a knot in the pit of the stomachs of oil and energy company executives that have recently come under investigation for the suspicion that they are illegally manipulating prices.

I wonder how long it will be before misguided idiots on the Gordon Gekko right will begin to bemoan these “nice guys” who were “persecuted” for the “crime of making a profit”.

I wonder how long it will be before tin-foil hat wearing Ayn Rand Libertarians will begin to shout about what a shame it is that these men were convicted – because people just won’t stop injecting “morality” into business where they believe there should be none.

I wonder if the analyst that Jeff Skilling called an “asshole” for having the audacity to ask a simple question about why the balance sheets and the cash flow statements didn’t seem to be jibing during that famous teleconference isn’t right about now laughing HIS ever-loving ass off.

I wonder how long it will be before right-of-center bloggers will begin to throw themselves on these two convicted felons, and begin to drive a wedge even deeper into an already fracturing conservate base - who are abadonding them for just this type of thing.

I wonder.

Entry Filed under: General