Kenneth Lay Quotes

You`ll have lower prices under deregulation than you will through regulation.

I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.

You`d rather have a surplus versus a shortage in your position.

Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it`s better than fine. It`s strong.

But certainly I didn`t know he was doing anything that was criminal.

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.

When there`s uncertainty they always think there`s another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.

But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.

We don`t break the law.

In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.

Investors don`t like uncertainty.

We see ourselves as first helping to open up markets to competition.

There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues.

I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.

We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.

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.

They can`t do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.

I don`t think I`m a criminal, number one.

We need someone who is a strong representative of our value system.

Every market is in transition.

I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.

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.

The transmission systems are still regulated.

Jeff knew full well what he was walking away from. Again, he needed to deal with this right away.

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.

Any slots at the senior level, including CEO or other slots, will be filled internally.

I have faith in the market when we get the rules right.

We`ve tried to get as much supply into California as we can.

There are absolutely no problems that had anything to do with Jeff`s departure.

When you have a monopoly franchise player exercising their market power, then usually we`re out on the other side of those issues.

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.

The problems in California have been that it`s been very difficult to site and build new power plants.

But I can`t take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.

Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.

Am I a fool? I don`t think I`m a fool. But I think I sure was fooled.

But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.

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.