<...Somehow the press reports suggest Enron forced its employees to keep their savings in Enron shares.

In fact there was a brief period, from Oct. 29 through Nov. 12, in which the 401(k) plan was frozen and Enron's employees were unable to sell their shares. The stock during that span fell to $9.24 a share from $13.81, a small step in the long plunge from more than $90 to pennies today. The only shares workers were restricted from selling outside that window were those pumped into the plan by the company as a "match" for part of each employee's contribution. (Those shares couldn't be sold until the worker turned 50.)

For the most part, workers held shares voluntarily and could have sold them, and diversified their portfolios, at any time. The reason they didn't is that they were greedy: They had seen Enron's stock rocket and decided the smart thing to do was bet that it would keep rocketing.



Cripes, I wondered how long it would take for someone to notice this. The whole Enron case is a dog-and-pony show originally set up by the Democratic Party for the single specific purpose of wrecking George W. Bush. Failing miserably in this, the show seems to be running now on mostly inertia, and a general anti-capitalistic streak on the part of the Democrats. The whole thing is nothing but a joke now, and it's a news story only because the Democratic toadies in the media are forcing it to be one.

I don't see anything happening with Enron that didn't happen with scores of dot.coms in my neighborhood, and everyone back then figured, well, so it goes.