awakeBelow are quotes from recorded phone conversations between Enron employees and traders. I'm not sure what's worse, that they said these things or that they were so brazenly stupid that they said them on a phone line that they knew was being recorded. Source for below: CBS (sorry, I lost the link, and I'm too lazy to go find it again).
"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing." -Enron trader, rooting for the fire, as he watched California wild fires spread taking out power lines.
"He just fucks California. He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"Will you rephrase that?"
"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day."
"They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee. "All the money you 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 ass for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."
"Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of 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 shit, man. He won't play this price-cap bullshit.'
"Crude, but true.
"'We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and 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.'" As Jon Stewart pointed out: Yeah, that's what we're pissed about.
