nirol

Hey 2wolves,
Enron's crimes are many, but I doubt that the above charge applies.
1) Enron's main crime was overestimating the demand for its products, energy and fiber-optic bandwidth. The economy slowed down, reducing demand for both when Enron had bet heavily on a shortage in the market, not the present surplus.
2) They also sold each of these products among subsidiaries and other suppliers (Duke Energy, Global Crossing) to inflate the demand for the product and therefore increase price. This contributed to the California energy crisis.
3) They bought products and companies with their inflated stock value and capitalized the price of these assets for 30 yrs. This spread out the cost of the purchase so that to service the debt each year was 1/30th. They sold these or other assets (a one time occurence) and showed the proceeds as part of their income, inflating their bottom line, which triggered bonus targets for the executives.
To your point:
1) Avoidance of taxes is legal, evasion is not.
2) Enron actually overpaid in Federal and state taxes by paying these on the phantom earnings. I believe the Bankruptcy Trustee has petitioned with the IRS for a refund of these taxes to help satisfy creditors.

I still believe that RICO may apply to Enron for other crimes, and I am not sure why this case hasnt gotten further.
In response to the initial question of the post. I doubt that Enron will persuade anyone to vote for or against Bush. It is a small issue relatively.

Thanks, and to steal a line from Analog:
SORRY FOR BEING SO LONG!

Merry Christmas everyone

__________________
'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)