The Enron Board Meets for the Last Time

The Enron Board Meets for the Last Time (2002)

Or...well...maybe not...

From the Associated Press (July 14, 2005):

The five-member Enron Corp. board of directors has voted for pay raises that boost salaries by as much as $1 million.

In a filing with the New York bankruptcy court that oversaw the company's reorganization last year, the board said it voted to increase its compensation retroactively to the beginning of June.

It raises the annual salary of Chairman John Ray III, a Wheaton, Ill., bankruptcy specialist, from $200,000 to $1.2 million.

Three other board members had their pay double to $300,000, while vice chairman Robert Deutschman, a Santa Monica, Calif., investment banker, now gets $420,000 annually, up from $150,000.

The board, none of them Enron employees, was chosen by creditors last year as part of the bankruptcy reorganization plan.

"All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

[Cartoon from ZNet's Enron Page]

Now -- hmmmmm -- who does this story remind me of? Oh, yeah. Could it be...these guys?

From the Associated Press (June 28, 2005):

The House on Tuesday agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year to $165,200 after defeating an effort to roll it back.

In a 263-152 vote, the House blocked a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to force an up-or-down vote on the pay raise. Instead, lawmakers will automatically receive the raise officially a cost of living adjustment as provided for in a 1989 law that barred them from pocketing big speaking fees in exchange for an annual COLA.

Matheson was the only one of 434 House members to speak out against the 1.9 percent COLA, which will raise members' salaries in January.

[...]

The annual debate on the members' COLA resembles kabuki theater: Both Democratic and Republican leaders guarantee sizable majorities of their members to block the effort, and they make sure there is not a clear-cut vote on the measure. None of the party campaign committees uses the pay-raise issue in campaigns.

"Each side put up their required quota" of votes, said Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House.

Republican leaders who succumbed to pressure to block the COLA for three of the first four years their party controlled Congress now are strong advocates of it. The last time it was rejected was in 1998.

Fired that the house rejects him, Sdeath!
I'll print it, And shame the fools.
--Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

It appears some "lucky duckies" will never have to suffer financial and emotional blowback from the newly minted bankruptcy "reform" bill.