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And such a nice family! Poor But Honest FolkBy Rick Horowitz
You'll forgive me if I'm not my normally ebullient self today, but this whole Enron mess still has me depressed. It's not the ordinary people -- workers, investors -- who've lost so much so quickly; it's easy to care about them. But what about the people at the very top of the corporate ladder? Haven't they lost more than anyone? You bet they have! Don't they deserve more sympathy than anyone? You bet they do! I guess I'm the sentimental sort; there's nothing like reading about rapacious gazillionaires brought low to bring a lump to my throat -- or maybe it's a tongue to my cheek. Whatever. So shed a special tear for the Lays, Ken and Linda. Poor dears -- they're down to their last five or six homes. Ken Lay: immensely innocent, highly virtuous and totally misunderstood. And how do we know Ken Lay is all these noble things? Simple, Simon: Linda Lay told us so, between sobs, on national television. The Lays rolled out their Humanize Kenny campaign just ahead of his scheduled appearance before a suddenly inquisitive Congress. Linda and the children want us to know the real Ken, not the palm-greasing, corner-cutting, employee-deceiving, money-grabbing Creep of Creeps all those nasty stories make him out to be. Linda's Ken is a wonderful man. And -- you guessed! -- he's a victim. Other people at Enron might have crossed the line, Linda conceded, but not her Ken. He didn't do it, and if others did it, he certainly didn't know about it. "There's some things that weren't -- that he wasn't told," Linda claimed. "Never, never, not for one second," she insisted, would he have allowed anything to go on that was "illegal." (Definitions to follow, presumably.) "The only truth I know, 100 percent for sure, is that my husband is an honest, decent, moral human being who would do absolutely nothing wrong." That's exactly the kind of defense you'd expect from a spouse, exactly the kind of defense you'd want your own spouse to offer up to ease your aching bones after a hard day of plundering and pillaging. ("Attila is so great with the kids! And he always calls me 'Hun.'") There was one other yank at the heartstrings, too: "We've lost everything," Linda said. And also this: "Other than the home we live in, everything we own is for sale." And also this: "We're fighting for liquidity." And also this: "It's gone. There's nothing left." Well. There's "nothing," and then there's "nothing." True, nobody knows exactly how much loot Ken sucked out of Enron before it imploded, or how deep into debt he went in the meantime. On the other hand, when you've earned $300 million or so in just the past four years, there might still be some little piles of money tucked away somewhere, don't you think? And let's not forget the real estate. When Linda says, "Other than the home we live in, everything we own is for sale," she's not talking about sticking a price tag on the lawn mower. They have other homes. Lots of homes. The high-rise apartment in Houston is worth more than $7 million, the stories say. Then there are at least three multimillion-dollar homes in Aspen. Not to mention the weekend place in Galveston. Anyway: When Linda says they're "fighting for liquidity," she means they're short of ready cash. Maybe she means Homes 2 through However-Many aren't attracting any buyers yet. My eyes are misting up just thinking about it. If only there were something I could do to help... But there is. The Lays need a quick infusion of cash, right? I just happen to have some cash, and I wouldn't mind a place out west. So here's my offer: $300 for any one of the Aspen homes, sight unseen. (I'll go $200 for the one in Galveston, just to get it off their hands.) Furnished or unfurnished -- I don't care. They even get to pick which one they want to unload. I hope it's an offer they won't refuse. I know they're going through a really hard time right now -- I'll give them 48 hours. Just call me a softie. Posted 1/31/02. Here's
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Rick Horowitz
