We thought you'd have fun participating in the Justice for Enron Execs contest, and we were right. Our winning entries show the creativity, Foolishness, and humor we were looking for. (Many of you took the opportunity to vent your anger, and that's fine also.)
After the dust had cleared, our judges settled on the entries below as the ten best. The winner, maccdw, will receive a one-year subscription to TMF Money Advisor. maccdw and the rest of the top ten also receive Fool Contest Points that count toward the overall grand prize of $500. The official standings can be found here.
Don't worry, there's still plenty of opportunity to play. We'll have five more contests before we award the grand prize! (Our next contest will be next Tuesday, Jan. 22 right after MLK Day.) If you want to discuss the standings, the contests, or just talk smack to your fellow participants, try our Fool Contests board.
First place (10 Contest Points)
Many of our entries detailed ways to compensate the victims who lost most of their pensions when Enron collapsed. maccdw seemed to have the best idea:
Each and every Enron "honcho" (i.e., managers, officers, Board members past and present) competes with one another to annually contribute the largest amount of funds possible to the Victims' Trust. At the end of the first year of our little contest, those Enron honchos whose contributions to the Trust are in the bottom 25% go to prison.
At the end of the second year, the cycle is repeated. For those Enron honchos not yet in prison, the 75% of those contributing the most to the Trust during Year Two get to stay in the game, and the bottom 25% get some new orange jammies.
The honchos get to use any means necessary to make their contributions. Fair, unfair, legal or illegal (an easy one for them).
The cycle repeats itself until one of two things happen: (1) The Victim Trust is big enough to repay everyone, or (2) there's only one honcho still not in prison. That lucky jerk (or jerkette) has two options: (1) continue to contribute, through any means possible, a greater and greater amount to the Trust, or (2) get some orange jammies. If (s)he fails, in any year, to contribute more than (s)he did the previous year, off to prison (s)he goes.
All honchos in prison stay there until the Trust has grown to a pre-determined amount. At that time, a popular vote of the victims will decide the remaining length of prison terms.
Second place (9 points)
JamesMKennedy's entry included a great lesson in ethics for current business students:
The Enron Execs' punishment of say 5 to 10 years imprisonment should include three things:
1. Pictures and graphs placed on the walls in their prison cells showing Enron stock values over the past three years. Music from the stage play South Pacific where Enzio Penzia sings "This Nearly Was Mine" would go well piped into cell speakers about 23 hours a day.
2. Each must attend two or three Economic 101 classes each week, in handcuffs and prison garb of course, at either MIT's Sloan School, Harvard's Business School, or Stanford's Business School. The Enron execs may not learn much but it will sure as hell focus the attention of the other business students on business ethics.
3. Each must have one-on-one, face-to-face meetings in prison with investors selected from a cross section of those who lost big on Enron. The jailed execs would have to personally pay back the investors from their personal assets everything the investors lost over, say, the final six-month period. But a note of caution here: just don't let any little old ladies who were victims be allowed to carry umbrellas into the meeting rooms unescorted... we don't want too many 80-year-old widows being hauled before judges on a wide range of grievous bodily harm charges.
Third place (8 points)
msurel's
idea, besides being hilarious, could also raise a lot of money for the victims via pay-per-view:
Have something resembling the Ultimate Fighting Championship, tag-team style. The Enron executives vs. all the ripped off employees who got royally screwed because they couldn't sell shares out of their 401(k) plans.
The executive crew is required to wear big poofy mittens and to fight in G-strings. The employees are allowed to bring one blunt weapon of their choice (club, chair, anvil, etc.) into the ring. They can wear helmets, armor, big stack heel boots like Gene Simmons from Kiss, anything they want.
The match ends when all the participants on one team are unconscious or have to be carted off on stretchers.
This can be a pay-per-view event. The proceeds can go to the employees. Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Lou Dobbs can do commentary on the match.
Jesse: "Look at that. Ken Lay just got hit with a reverse-double-suplex. I think he broke his spleen. Look at that blood!"
Lou: "Well, I'm sure that's just payback. That employee had over $1.3 million in his 401(k). If he'd been able to sell his Enron stock and diversify..."
Jesse: "Oh my GOD! Not only are you boring all the fans out there you pencil-neck geek, but I think Ken's eye just got stuck to the lapel of your jacket."
If you liked those, be sure to check out the rest of our Top Ten:
- Walking the Pipeline, by shawnr33
- Dante's Revenge, by ezrapound3
- Executive Outplacement, by altaboy
- Reluctant Santas, by dustman51
- Cathartic Carnival, by BroadwayDan
- Afghan Relief, by pattierae
- Gas Traders, by jack24k
This Contest is not affiliated with, or endorsed by Enron Corp. Enron is a registered trademark of Enron Corp. For official contest rules, click this link.
