From 'Enron' to 'Amway'

Shyam

When it comes to corporate frauds spawned in the USA, even courageous whistleblowers, like Harry Markopolos, have eventually become so exasperated by the inertia of US federal government law enforcement agencies (run by tame political-appointees and amoral attorneys), that they have finally given up complaining. I have to say that I have experienced almost the identical situation in the UK with regard to the 'Amway' fraud and its many 'MLM' copy-cats.

Amazingly, without the current world economic crisis, Bernie Madoff would probably still be posing as a respected financial guru whilst running his absurd Ponzi-scheme. Even though Harry Markopolos and his financially-literate associates clearly explained to financially-illiterate SEC officials what Madoff was doing, these dunces never made the slightest investigation. Madoff actually gave himself up to the FBI when he no longer had sufficient cash to sustain his reality-inverting controlling scenario. Harry Markopolos has since correctly deduced that Madoff was motivated out of fear of what might happen to him at the hands of some of his less-than innocent victims (who had foolishly been laundering the proceeds of organized crime through Madoff's fake 'Hedge Fund'), and that he preferred the relative safety of a prison cell.

Despite the spectacular 'Enron' energy company scandal of 2001 (and others), the cancer of corporate frauds remains as deep-rooted as ever in the USA. The reliance of successive federal governments on multi-million dollar corporate-funding to get elected, has undoubtedly made the leadership of both the Democrat and Republican parties a significant part of the problem, not the solution to it. Indeed, the billionaire bosses of the 'Amway' mob have used their ill-gotten gains (and propaganda machine) to infiltrate the Republican party in Michigan to a degree which almost beggars belief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_DeVos .

It came as no surprise to me, when I discovered that the name of 'Amway' appeared in the investigation of 'Enron' http://www.amquix.info/mickey_mouse_business.html . Like the 'Amway' fraud, the 'Enron' fraud was deliberately constucted to be too complex to be immediately understood. Consequently, its explanation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal ) actually requires an explanation itself.

Over a period of 15 years, the stock price of 'Enron' was artificially inflated by corrupt senior company officers (with the connivance of their amoral attorneys and accountants, under the noses of conveniently blind SEC officials) to a price (per individual share) of $90. In reality, due to a stack of failed deals and projects, 'Enron' was insolvent to the tune of billions of dollars, but to casual observers the company still appeared to be solvent and permanently-profitable to the tune of billions of dollars. The reality-inverting 'Enron' controlling scenario was sustained by the creation of a mystifying labyrinth of more than 1000 (apparently independent) corporate structures which were all losing money hand over fist. In simple terms, 'Enron's' catastrophic losses were off-loaded onto dummy corporations, only gains were publicly declared. When the truth finally began to appear, the stock price of 'Enron' quickly collapsed to around 60 cents (per individual share), leaving investors $11 billions out of pocket, but (knowing what was about to happen) 'Enron's' corrupt senior company rats had already abandoned their sinking ship carrying its treasure.

David Brear (copyright 2010)