It finally happened. Paul Krugman finally realized he has a serious ethical problem on his hands. He won’t concede that, of course. Instead he keeps putting up smokescreens and diversions. The most preposterous is that Krugman – this millionaire pundit with the New York Times at his disposal – is a victim of the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” Hmmm. Where have we heard that before? Is he aware that the paper that broke the news of his $50,000 Enron sinecure was, er, the New York Times, that bastion of conservative bias? Is he aware that this website – “too vile to read” in Krugman’s own words – also exposed conservative Bill Kristol’s $100,000 Enron lucre, conservative Larry Kudlow’s $50,000 and (see below) conservative Irwin Stelzer’s repeated non-disclosures of his own deep involvement. That’s three out of four pundits on the right. That’s some self-hating Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
THE HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS:You’ll notice one detail missing from Krugman’s apologia – the amount of money he got. Why won’t he mention it? Because it’s the most damning evidence against him. I think the average New York Times reader would be shocked to hear that their economics columnist, whom they expect to be above conflicts of interest, is richer by $50,000 thanks to his ties to Enron and that he has bragged about it. Krugman also knows that. That’s why he won’t mention it. Then he even boasts that it was below his going rate! He then tells us in all seriousness that the criticism of his enmeshment of Enron is a function of the Right’s attempt “to discredit concerns about the gap between haves and have-nots.” Excuse me, Mr. Pundit “Who Gets Money Calls”, don’t you think you have a little credibility problem here? He says criticism of a super-rich pundit is a smokescreen to deflect attention from “a leftist morality play: wealthy executives make off with millions while ordinary workers lose their jobs and their life savings.” Puh-leaze. In fact, scrutiny of Krugman’s buckraking is precisely an attempt to expose the fact that Krugman himself is very much one of the “haves,” a specific example of the gap between haves and have-nots. He is the one absconding with $50,000 worth of dirty money from a criminal enterprise “while ordinary workers lose their jobs and their life savings.” Earth to Krugman: You’ve got a share of those life savings in your wallet. If you don’t have the decency to give your share back, then please have the decency to quit your sermons about others.
NOW, STELZER: As part of the right-wing attempt to nail Enron on liberals, I’ll now report on Enron’s connections with Irwin Stelzer, a prominent conservative writer, a contributor to the Weekly Standard and my own paper, The Sunday Times of London, as well as many other publications, including the Financial Times. Anyway, Mr Stelzer is, by all accounts, a key member of the Enron-financed pundit circle. He was key to encouraging Kristol, Krugman and Kudlow to join the Enron gravy train. He disclosed this fact himself in the Weekly Standard of November 27 2001. Alas, Stelzer wrote many articles about Enron before that date and, unlike Krugman, never disclosed a thing about his ties to Enron, let alone his financial remuneration. I base that on a Nexis search and a search through the archives of the Sunday Times. I emailed Stelzer to ask him if I had somehow missed such a disclosure, but Stelzer does not apparently believe in returning another journalist’s calls or emails – even from a fellow columnist on the same paper. I should add that I agree with much of what Stelzer writes and have no doubt that he is sincere in everything he has written. Nevertheless, disclosure in such a matter is a no-brainer.
THE PAPER TRAIL: Here are some extracts from Stelzer articles over the last few years that mention Enron. On October 11, 1998, in a column in the Sunday Times and the Financial Times, Stelzer wrote:
“Enron is putting money into solar and wind power, claiming that renewable energy can now produce electricity at prices that are almost competitive with coal, when coal’s environmental costs are counted. But those profits, if they are ever to be realised, are unlikely to come soon enough or be big enough to restore the industry’s lustre. The good news is that some companies appear to be well positioned to survive in a low-price, low-demand future … Add Enron to the list of those likely to thrive in the future. An aggressive company, Enron is an efficient operator of gas power plants that has led the way in energy trading and is in the process of adding about 1,000 professionals to its London staff.”
“Add Enron to the list of those likely to thrive in the future.” I don’t know whether he was being paid by Enron at that point in time or not. Either way, he made no disclosure. On December 2, 2001, as the scandal was breaking, he wrote a semi-defense of Enron in the Sunday Times:
“What Enron and Lay deserve to be remembered for is leading the fight for competition. This battle was waged in the halls of Congress, in state legislatures around the country, and in regulatory agencies at federal, state and local levels… [P]erhaps most important, Enron fought to allow customers and suppliers to strike whatever bargains they found mutually advantageous, rather than be required to buy and sell energy through the monopolies that control transmission facilities… [T]here is as yet no indication that the mistakes – among them expensive failures in new ventures and in some overseas projects – were other than honest ones, or that investors were deliberately kept in the dark or misled about the company’s finances.”
Again, there was no disclosure. (This is particularly odd, since the column seems to be an edited or re-worked version of his November 27 2001 piece for the Weekly Standard. The Standard piece included a disclosure. In the Sunday Times piece, in a paragraph of similar wording, it appears to have been removed.) On December 9, 2001, Stelzer revealed that Ken Lay was at one time on the short-list for Bush’s Treasury Secretary:
“Ken Lay, the chief of Enron, at the time one of the country’s success stories, was on the shortlist, but was disinclined to disrupt his cherished family life by moving to Washington, a decision he must now regret.”
Well, if Lay regrets the fact that he ruled himself out for Treasury Secretary, I’m sure Bush is extremely relieved. (If true, isn’t it a big story that Lay was on the short-list?) Again, Stelzer gave no indication of his ties to Enron in this column. On December 16, he mentioned Enron in a routine sentence, and again made no disclosure. Finally, on January 20, of this year, he wrote – again with no disclosure of his ties – that the fleeced Enron shareholders had it coming to them:
“The retreat from efforts to give individuals more say in their affairs, and to reduce government power, has, of course, been accelerated by the collapse of Enron. Many of that company’s 20,000 workers elected to invest their retirement funds in the company’s stock, even though they were offered several other investment plans. They gambled on becoming rich and lost their bets.”
It gives me no pleasure to record these instances. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for them. I have no clue since Stelzer has not responded to any inquiries. Nor has he said how much money in total he received from Enron, but, given Stelzer’s role, it may well exceed Bill Kristol’s $100,000. So we appear to have a simple case of a journalist writing boosterish columns about Enron, being on a paid Enron advisory board, helping recruit other journalists to it, and only disclosin
g his ties in a single instance after years and several articles in which Enron was mentioned. This was the man who sat on the same board and was big buddies with Lay, Krugman, Kristol and Kudlow. It’s not getting any prettier, is it?
The Dish 