En [snip]

Enron Traders Caught On Tape
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml

(CBS) When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into
California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy
traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the
massive fire.

Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy
deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard – on audiotapes
obtained by CBS News – gloating and praising each other as they
helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.

"He just fucks California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money
from California to the tune of about a million."

"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a

bucks or two a day," replies the first.

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what
CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers,
traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut

"If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back

an Enron worker is heard saying.

"Oh, it's not something you want to just be turning on and off every

Let's put it that way," another says.

"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down."

Officials with the Snohomish Public Utility District near Seattle

the tapes from the Justice Department.

"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they
manipulated the market," said Eric Christensen, a spokesman for the

That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from

"They're funcking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains
an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from
those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

"Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've
charged right up, jammed right up her ***** for fucking $250 a

And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey
Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.

"Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and

Skilling," says one trader.

"Ok."

"Do you know when you started over-scheduling load and making
buckets of money on that?

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities

a Bush win.

"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one
Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any
limits on sky-high energy prices.

"When this election comes Bush will fucking whack this *****, man.
He won't play this price-cap *****."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse

that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of
these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at
Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."

"Tuttle's Almanac" <Harry.Tuttle@brazil.plumbing.gov> wrote in message
news:11tshdo5l78ik0b@corp.supernews.com...

En [snip]

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