02/10/02 01:15pm

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Money counts and the government should eliminate my taxes. An article in today's Washington Post describes a computer model developed by Enron economists to predict the cost or benefit, to Enron, of any existing or proposed federal regulation. The data generated by "the matrix" (did these guys have a thing for movies or what?) was used to optimize the distribution of cash to politicians in order to obtain the best return on investment.

There's nothing wrong with that. Enron was playing by the rules, and the rules say it's OK to contribute to politicians who best represent your interests. In fact, it's possible that government-dependant companies like Halliburton and Carlyle are remiss in their fiduciary duties if they don't run computer simulations of various what-if scenarios for military spending and energy policy, in order to maximize return on their investment in politicians.

Gia Maisashvili, an economist who had worked on the Enron computer model, ultimately quit in disgust at the way it was used. He told the Post:

They could have cared less if that was a good thing [for the public] or not. They cared only if this was good for Enron.

It's up to government to decide what is in the interest of the public and the country, not corporate CEOs. Capitalism works, but it only works to the benefit of all in the context of sufficient government regulation and oversight. The fiduciary responsibility of corporate management is to maximize shareholder value; attendance to the public good is the duty of government.

More from the Post (via JMM):

"The ingrained philosophy was, me first, money counts and the government should eliminate my taxes," said another former manager. "That's all they cared about -- what impacted them personally."

Paul O'Neill

The administration recently produced a budget document featuring a drawing of Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians. The analogy, presumably, is to the constraints imposed by on business by elected politicians.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had this to say on the issue:

I've dedicated my life to doing what I can to get rid of rules that limit human potential, and I'm not going to stop.