Sometimes there are decisions made by bureaucracies that are so inane, so illogical, that they strain the credulity of those like me who live on the sidelines. In this case, according to the Associated Press, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has imposed a "death penalty" on Enron, forbidding the company from selling natural gas or electric at market prices. The reasoning is that because the company rigged power markets in the western part of the country a couple of years ago, it should now pay. Unfortunately, this only makes sense under the concept of a corporation being not just a legal entity, but a sentient one. Corporations are collections of assets, business interests, and paperwork. There are times that they do something so egregious that reason demands that they shoulder the costs.
But what will this decision accomplish? The people who ran Enron and directed the ethically- and legally-challenged tactics are gone - out the door of the headquarters in Texas and in the door of the justice system. They did bad things, yes, and hurt more people than I could comfortably count in a month of Sundays. However, the Enron that is left is a different company: different management, far fewer employees, struggling to let at least some people continue to enjoy a living, trying to find a way to return at least some value to the shareholders one of these decades. At this point, to punish the company by making it incapable of achieving reasonable revenues is to hurt many of the people who have already been damaged by the previous practices. In the name of competitive markets fair to consumers and the public interest, the FERC is bludgeoning the same. No good will come of this other than some self-congratulatory empty rhetoric.
2:50:57 PM 
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