The Third Way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_(centrism)
Excerpt:
 The Third Way style of governing was firmly adopted and partly redefined during the administration of President Bill Clinton

http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=5597
Excerpt:

Starting with Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign in 1992, Third Way thinking is reshaping progressive politics throughout the world. Inspired by the example of Clinton and the New Democrats, Tony Blair in Britain led a revitalized New Labour party back to power in 1997. The victory of Gerhard Shroeder and the Social Democrats in Germany the next year confirmed the revival of center-left parties which either control or are part of the governing coalition forming throughout the European Union. From Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, Third Way ideas also are taking hold.

http://www.slate.com/id/2242925/

Excerpt:

The larger challenge to the economist's worldview came last night from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the biggest big shot to make it to the World Economic Forum this year. Sarkozy delivered a passionate keynote address, which, in another era, would have been framed as an avowal of "third way" economics, threading the needle between inhumane capitalism and impractical socialism. But because the term "socialism" remains politically unpalatable even in France, even after the financial crisis, Sarkozy framed his alternative as a "kind of capitalism." His argument is that untrammeled market economics threaten human values. Or, in words of the official translation: "We will not reconcile our citizens to globalization and to capitalism, if we are not capable of offsetting market forces with counterbalances and corrective measures."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/569924/posts

Excerpt:

Why  was McLarty so concerned about the sale of a relatively small gas supplier in Oklahoma? Why did the first lady take McLarty's "problem" in the matter so seriously? Is Ron Miller, a principal owner of GAGE, dead today because of the need to eliminate him as a threat to the Clinton White House?

It is a complicated story that begins many years ago. Oklahoma Natural Gas, claimed that Creek Systems, a GAGE subsidiary, was "fraudulently" overcharging the company's customers, and sought to end a long-term gas purchase contract with GAGE. Ron Miller took the case to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the natural gas business in Oklahoma. To his dismay, the Commission sided with ONG. This threatened to financially bankrupt Miller and his corporate partner, James H. Kitchens, also of Norman.

On October 2, 1992, Commissioner Bob Anthony made headlines with his public announcement that he had been assisting the FBI (specifically Special Agent John Hippard) in uncovering corruption at the Commission. Anthony cited the GAGE situation as a prime example of a case that was tainted by corruption. Utility lobbyist William Anderson was later convicted of bribing Commissioner Bob Hopkins in a case involving Southwestern Bell Telephone. Anderson was a lobbyist not only for Southwestern Bell, but also for ONG and Arkansas Louisiana Gas (ARKLA). Commissioner Anthony received covert payments from ARKLA senior executives at the same time that ARKLA had multimillion dollar rate cases before the commission. At the time, Thomas McLarty, a childhood friend of Bill Clinton, was the Chief Executive Officer of ARKLA. Another childhood friend of Clinton's and McLarty's, Vince Foster, handled ARKLA business at the Rose Law firm while a partner with Hillary Clinton. As Anthony explained, "Even if Mack McLarty did not personally participate in or did not personally know of the illegal conduct of his senior officers, it certainly would have been a skeleton in his closet."

http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/occdynamic.htm

Excerpt:

Oklahoma Corporation Commission
Testimony of Nolanda Butler Hill and Stephen P. Dresch
Implicating Thomas F. McLarty III and Hillary Rodham Clinton
in the Matter of Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc., and Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONEOK)

Below you will find the texts of prepared statements presented under oath by Nolanda Butler Hill and Stephen P. Dresch on January 31, 2001, at Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Public Hearing on Purchased Gas Adjustment Clauses of Oklahoma Natural Gas Company and Reliant Energy Arkla, Cause No. PUD 200100018.

Ms. Hill directly implicates, in addition to the late Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown, Thomas F. (Mac) McLarty III and Hillary Rodham Clinton in events stemming from an investigation of corruption at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (including bribery of commissioners) and involving Dynamic Energy Resources (Nora and Eugene Lum, W. Stuart Price, Michael A. Brown et al.) and Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONEOK) et al.

Dresch develops evidence which demonstrates that a contract awarded by Oklahoma Natural Gas to Dynamic Energy Resources on November 9, 1993, which Dynamic resold (one-half presold) for about $19 million (netting the Lums, Price, Brown et al. in excess of $10 million), "represents the laundering of the costs of avoiding liability and preventing the exposure of defalcations, almost definitionally nonrecoverable, into recoverable purchased-gas charges." Dresch concludes: "In determining the appropriate purchased-gas charges and adjustments to be allowed ONG, the Commission should exclude the 'excess' or 'imprudent' costs incurred by ONG through its contract with Dynamic Energy Resources and its successors (ANG and Enogex). These are costs which ONG alone should bear, and they certainly should not be shifted to ONG’s natural gas consumers."

Public Comment
of
Nolanda Butler Hill
Oklahoma Corporation Commission

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/57/Enron-Corporation.html  (Please read in full as it has lots of good info.)  ...cal
Excerpt:

In the United States, states were given the power to deregulate gas and electric utilities in 1994, which meant that residential customers could choose utilities in the same way that they chose their phone carriers. This looked like an enormous opportunity for Enron. CEO Lay was fervently in favor of deregulation, believing it would solve problems for consumers and utilities alike. The company moved into the residential electricity market in 1996, when Enron agreed to acquire Portland General, an Oregon utility whose transmission lines would give the company access to California's $20-billion market, as well as access to 650,000 customers in Oregon. In 1997, Enron Energy Services began to supply natural gas to residential customers in Toledo, Ohio, and contracted to sell wind power to Iowa residents. Through a subsidiary, Zond Corporation, the company contracted with MidAmerican Energy Company of Houston to supply 112.5 megawatts of wind-generated electricity to about 50,000 homes, the largest single purchase contract in the history of wind energy. Zond was to build the facility in northwestern Iowa, using about 150 of its Z-750 kilowatt series wind turbines, the biggest made in the United States.

http://www.ralphedavis.com/clients.html
Excerpt:
Enron Oil and Gas (Florida Gas, Northern Natural Gas Company)

EOG Resources (Enron Exploration Company)

http://www.politicalcapitalism.org/book2/
Excerpt:

Insull’s career comprises the first three of the book’s 11 chapters. Next comes a four-chapter section based on Ken Lay’s two-time mentor—Jack Bowen. Bowen went to work for the Warren Buffet of his day, Clint Murchison, a legendary figure whom few now know. Murchison invested in hundreds of businesses, almost all of which were money-makers. In particular, the “Wheeler-Dealer from Texas,” who made the cover of national magazines such as Time, founded major natural gas pipeline companies that are part of the Enron story in different ways.

It was Jack Bowen at Florida Gas Company (which Enron would later acquire), who hired Ken Lay from government. And some years later, while CEO of Transco Energy Company, the major gas supplier to New York City, Bowen hired Lay again. Lay, Transco’s president, was expected to succeed Bowen as CEO when Houston Natural Gas (HNG) called. HNG, through merger, would become Enron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Natural_Gas_Building
Excerpt:
History
Northern Natural Gas Co. built the six-story corporate headquarter tower in the early 1950s, adding a 16-story tower in the late 1950s. The building has over 259,000 sf of gross space located on a 3.77-acre (15,300 m²) site, with over 600 parking stalls in two attached heated parking garages and adjacent parking lots. In 1985, Northern's parent company, InterNorth Inc., bought Houston Natural Gas, a Houston, Texas based company to become Enron Corp. Enron Corp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterNorth
Excerpt:
InterNorth Inc. was a very large energy company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States, specializing in natural gas pipelines but also a force in the plastics industry, coal and petroleum exploration and production. They operated the largest natural gas pipeline in North America. It was formed in 1979 as a holding company for Northern Natural Gas Company (founded in 1931), Northern Liquid Fuels Company, Northern Petrochemicals Company, Northern Propane Gas Company, and Northern Border Pipeline Company. InterNorth was briefly renamed HNG/InterNorth in 1985, following its takeover of Houston Natural Gas Company, before taking the name Enron Corporation just six months later.
Later that year, the company launched an unsolicited takeover bid for Crouse-Hinds Company, which wound up being acquired by Cooper Industries the following year. The company continued to pursue expansion opportunities and, in 1985, reached a deal, seen by some as overpriced, to acquire the smaller competitor Houston Natural Gas (HNG) Company. InterNorth was an arbitrage target and acquired HNG as a poison pill. Regardless it was still a target of Irwin Jacobs of Minneapolis. Ex-HNG CEO Ken Lay "borrowed" over $400,000,000.00 from the Employee Stock Ownership Program to buy back Jacobs stock so he could keep his job and cover other financial losses of Enron as early as 1987. Lay then froze the ESOP for seven years except for retirement or death benefits.
Although intended to secure InterNorth's independence, the HNG takeover proved a "wag-the-dog" transaction: despite an initial plan for dual headquarters in Omaha and Houston, with InterNorth CEO Samuel Segnar in control, the company soon was based entirely in Houston and run by HNG's CEO, Kenneth Lay, who renamed the company Enron Corporation. Initially Mr. Lay and his secretary, Nancy McNeil picked the name Enteron, due to the positive connotations of the words "enter" and "on'. though it was soon discovered to be a Greek term for digestive system or intestine. The markets reacted with hilarity and a month later he changed the name again to ENRON costing many millions in advertising, signage, stationery and contracts. Nancy McNeil is now married to Rich Kinder of Kinder-Morgan who was the #2 executive of Enron before 1997.
The most valuable asset of Internorth had been Northern Natural Gas company which was at one time the largest natural gas distributor in North America. After the bankruptcy of Enron, Northern Natural Gas briefly became part of Dynegy Corp of Houston whose Chairman Daniel Dienstbier had been president of NNG before Ken Lay seized control of Internorth. Dynegy then sold NNG to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway who moved it back to Omaha.

If I Could Change the World Clapton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x11NA63gLDM&feature=related

Come On Sing Along!

If I could reach the stars I'd pull one down for you
Shine it on my heart so you could see the truth
That this love I have inside is everything it seems
But for now I find it's only in my dreams

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world

If I could be king even for a day
I'd take you as my queen I'd have it no other way
And our love will rule in this kingdom we have made
Till then I'd be a fool wishin' for the day

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world

- GUITAR SOLO -

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world