The plight of recently retired Enron employees is heartbreaking, but not surprising, in light of the "new barbarians" infecting corporate America. Indeed, the need for greed ran rampant when Enron executives "cooked the books," sold over $1 billion in stocks and took $100 million in bonuses just before dumping 21,000 employees and declaring bankruptcy, while locked-in company shareholders watched in horror as their retirement stocks plunged from a high of $90 per share, to a low of 35 cents.

Clearly, CEO Kenneth Lay and Enron embarked on a scorched-earth policy when they advanced their interests from owning natural gas pipelines and power plants to high-powered trading that garnered $63 billion in assets with outrageous energy prices, which resulted in having a significant impact on California's energy crisis.

Certainly, free market economy is a good thing, but not when innocent consumers and employees are taken for devastating rides, at their own expense, by conscienceless power-players and money-mongers, unfortunately, not so different from the relationship between taxpayers and government. Alas, rather than the tail wagging the dog, informed shareholders should share the power in corporations, just as the informed citizens should occupy the front row seat in deciding tax and public policy matters.

Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
The Direct Democracy Center