Kenneth Lay quotes:
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I take responsibility for what happened at Enron, both good and bad. But I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was unaware of.
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I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.
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We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.
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The collapse of Enron and the subsequent collapse of Arthur Andersen were tremendous tragedies. But as I stated at the time of my indictment on July 8, 2004, failure does not equate to a crime.
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We need someone who is a strong representative of our value system.
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But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.
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Jeff knew full well what he was walking away from. Again, he needed to deal with this right away.
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In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.
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The problems in California have been that it's been very difficult to site and build new power plants.
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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.
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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.
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We don't break the law.
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There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues.
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But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.
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I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.
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Every market is in transition.
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There are absolutely no problems that had anything to do with Jeff's departure.
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We see ourselves as first helping to open up markets to competition.
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They can't do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.
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I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.
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Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.
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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.
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Am I a fool? I don't think I'm a fool. But I think I sure was fooled.
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You'd rather have a surplus versus a shortage in your position.
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But I can't take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.
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Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it's better than fine. It's strong.
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I don't think I'm a criminal, number one.
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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.
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You'll have lower prices under deregulation than you will through regulation.
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I've not only pursued the American dream, I've achieved it. I suppose we could say the last few years, I've also achieved the American nightmare
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Aggressive accounting does not mean illegal accounting.
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But certainly I didn't know he was doing anything that was criminal.
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I always took my role as a leader, and certainly chairman and CEO of a major company very seriously as to our employees and trying to create opportunities for them and create opportunities where they could even, as I said many times, could realize their God-given potential and maybe realize more potential than even they realize they had.
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I don't fear jail because I know I'm not guilty. I know I did nothing wrong. I did nothing criminal and I also believe my God will get me through this.
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I have faith in the market when we get the rules right.
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If there is anything material and we're not reporting it, we'll be breaking the law. We don't break the law.
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Investors don't like uncertainty.
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It's been very interesting. We've seen a lot of interesting testimony. We've seen a lot of interesting people, a lot of allegations, a lot of lies, a lot of misinformation and some truth.
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I've not only pursued the American dream, I've achieved it. I suppose we could say the last few years, I've also achieved the American nightmare.
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The transmission systems are still regulated.
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We will cooperate fully with the SEC and look forward to the opportunity to put any concern about these transactions to rest.
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We're (also) looking for a good people person who is able to motivate others and get strong performances out of people.
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When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.
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I threw my whole life and lived my life in a certain way to make sure that I would never violate any law.. certainly never any criminal laws.. and always maintained that most important to me was my integrity, was my character, were my values.