Subsidizing Enron

Over at Human Events, Timothy Carney argues that the U.S. government was an unindicted accomplice in the Enron fraud case. Here's one example:

The first specific charge in the federal indictment under which Skilling and Lay were convicted last month relates to the "Use of special purpose entities [SPEs]…to manipulate financial results." Specifically, the indictment discusses a bungled power-and-pipeline project in Cuiaba, Brazil—a deal whereby Enron simultaneously hid large losses while enriching Fastow personally.

While the Cuiaba project was "straining to meet budget targets" in late 1999, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal subsidy agency, extended a $200-million subsidy credit to Enron to help it build a pipeline to the plant.

Did I just blog pieces from In These Times and Human Events back to back? I suppose I did.

Whole thing here.