Am I a fool? I don't think I'm a fool. But I think I sure was fooled.
Any slots at the senior level, including CEO or other slots, will be filled internally.
At the same token, prudence would have said, you don't depend on having high hydro season power every year, because that doesn't happen either.
Because Andy and his team were lying to me and the board and the senior executives.
But certainly I didn't know he was doing anything that was criminal.
But I can't take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.
But I fought as hard as I could with my almost - last breath, prior to the time we - Enron collapsed, doing everything we could to save it.
But I was very close to George W. and had a lot of respect for him, had watched him over the years, particularly with reference to dealing with his father when his father was in the White House and some of the things he did to work for his father, and so (I) did support him.
But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.
But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.
But we have very, very narrow limits on all of our buying and selling of all of our commodities worldwide; different kinds of terms, etc.
Every market is in transition.
First of all, to my knowledge, at that point in time there was nothing pending before FERC with reference to this particular issue.
I don't think I'm a criminal, number one.
I had every reason to think that the underlying businesses, the fundamentals of the underlying businesses, were strong.
I have faith in the market when we get the rules right.
I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.
I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.
I mean, the company had a lot of strong cash flows when it went into bankruptcy.
I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.
I think the primary reason for Enron's collapse was Andy Fastow and his little group of people and what they did.
I'd worked very closely with Ann Richards also, the four years she was governor.
I've been a strong financial and political supporter of, first, President Bush Sr. when he was running for president, and even when he ran for president a time or two and failed.
If anybody has any electricity or natural gas and elects not to sell it at the kind of prices they've seen over the last 12 months - that's stupid.
If the rules are right - and they were not right in California - but if the rules are right, electricity, like any other commodity, can be arranged for, can be priced more efficiently by competitive market forces than it can be by regulators and monopolists.
If we go back over the last 20 years, as a country, we have underinvested in energy infrastructure.
In both the wholesale law for electricity and for natural gas, it really gives FERC alternatives.
In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.
Investors don't like uncertainty.
It's mainly a matter that the generation of electricity - the marketing, the buying, the selling of electricity and natural gas are not regulated.
Jeff knew full well what he was walking away from. Again, he needed to deal with this right away.
Natural gas prices in Texas have also gone up two or threefold over the last several months, and indeed, electricity prices have, too.
Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it's better than fine. It's strong.
The company is probably in the strongest and best shape that it has ever been in.
The last thing I would have ever expected to happen to me in my life would be that, in fact, I would be accused of doing something wrong and maybe even something criminal.
The problems in California have been that it's been very difficult to site and build new power plants.
The transmission systems are still regulated.
There are absolutely no problems that had anything to do with Jeff's departure.
There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues.
They can't do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.
Today, there are also buyers and sellers of all these energy commodities, just like there are buyers and sellers of food commodities and many other commodities.
Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.
We are usually on opposite sides with the monopolists.
We don't break the law.
We had a lot more power-generating capacity than we really needed which was really built up under regulated models, where the more you invested, the more you spent, the more profits you made.
We have many large businesses in Enron, any one of which would be ranked rather high as a standalone.
We need someone who is a strong representative of our value system.
We see ourselves as first helping to open up markets to competition.
We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.
We're also looking for a good people person who is able to motivate others and get strong performances out of people.
We've tried to get as much supply into California as we can.
Well, rates would go up whether you deregulate or not, and of course, the rates that are going up right now on the electricity side are still within the regulated framework.
When Governor Bush, now President Bush, decided to run for the governor's spot, it was a little difficult situation.
When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.
When you have a monopoly franchise player exercising their market power, then usually we're out on the other side of those issues.
You'd rather have a surplus versus a shortage in your position.
You'll have lower prices under deregulation than you will through regulation.
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