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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Enron to Banks: You Made Us Do It
Aired May 28, 2003 - 07:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Enron executives are back in the news today, and they are going to be going to court, and they want to take their bankers to court with them and sue them for giving them bad advice.
We get more on this now from Andy Serwer, who is "Minding Your Business" this morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, guys. Another chapter in the blame-game here, right? I mean, who is responsible for what?
HARRIS: That sounds like a lot of nerve to me, though. I don't know.
SERWER: Yes, well, I mean, you blame the bankers; it's not our fault.
HARRIS: Yes.
SERWER: Enron executives, according to "The Wall Street Journal," as you mentioned, Leon, are looking to go after 16 different banks. I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count all of those banks, but it's all the biggie, every single bank.
Stephen Cooper, the new CEO of Enron is looking to do this. The third toughest job in America, they call that, after President Bush and Mayor Bloomberg in New York, the CEO of Enron. And it's a tough chapter. They went into bankruptcy, you remember, December, 2001. So, they've still got a long ways to go on that one, though.
HARRIS: That's a tough one. But, I mean, every story that we've heard so far has been about how they've decided to just take the information that they've had and manipulate it themselves.
SERWER: Yes.
HARRIS: How can they turn around and the blame the bankers for what happened?
SERWER: Well, they're looking to get all of the money they can back from anyone they can. It's just a big mess. And these guys -- I mean, eventually Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and all of those guys have got to pay the piper on that one.
HARRIS: All right, we'll see.
COLLINS: So, what's going to happen with investors today? We have a great rally yesterday.
SERWER: It really was.
COLLINS: Are we going to see more of that today?
SERWER: I think we are, Heidi, because we have some really good news on the futures front. They are up. Look at that! The Dow was up 179 points, that's 2 percent. The Nasdaq up over 3 percent. We're at an 11-month high on the Nasdaq. All of your old favorites coming back: Amazon, Yahoo!, EBay over a hundred bucks. That's the first time it's been that way since the year 2000.
Housing starts are strong, and also consumer confidence. People are saying people are concerned about the economy, but they're out there buying the most expensive thing that they will own in their lives, which are homes. So, how depressed could they be?
HARRIS: And that's been the case all throughout the entire ups and downs we've seen.
SERWER: That's correct, and the low rates are doing it.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Andy.
SERWER: OK, see you.
COLLINS: Sounds pretty good. All right, Andy Serwer, thanks so much.
HARRIS: See you in a bit.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired May 28, 2003 - 07:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Enron executives are back in the news today, and they are going to be going to court, and they want to take their bankers to court with them and sue them for giving them bad advice.
We get more on this now from Andy Serwer, who is "Minding Your Business" this morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, guys. Another chapter in the blame-game here, right? I mean, who is responsible for what?
HARRIS: That sounds like a lot of nerve to me, though. I don't know.
SERWER: Yes, well, I mean, you blame the bankers; it's not our fault.
HARRIS: Yes.
SERWER: Enron executives, according to "The Wall Street Journal," as you mentioned, Leon, are looking to go after 16 different banks. I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count all of those banks, but it's all the biggie, every single bank.
Stephen Cooper, the new CEO of Enron is looking to do this. The third toughest job in America, they call that, after President Bush and Mayor Bloomberg in New York, the CEO of Enron. And it's a tough chapter. They went into bankruptcy, you remember, December, 2001. So, they've still got a long ways to go on that one, though.
HARRIS: That's a tough one. But, I mean, every story that we've heard so far has been about how they've decided to just take the information that they've had and manipulate it themselves.
SERWER: Yes.
HARRIS: How can they turn around and the blame the bankers for what happened?
SERWER: Well, they're looking to get all of the money they can back from anyone they can. It's just a big mess. And these guys -- I mean, eventually Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and all of those guys have got to pay the piper on that one.
HARRIS: All right, we'll see.
COLLINS: So, what's going to happen with investors today? We have a great rally yesterday.
SERWER: It really was.
COLLINS: Are we going to see more of that today?
SERWER: I think we are, Heidi, because we have some really good news on the futures front. They are up. Look at that! The Dow was up 179 points, that's 2 percent. The Nasdaq up over 3 percent. We're at an 11-month high on the Nasdaq. All of your old favorites coming back: Amazon, Yahoo!, EBay over a hundred bucks. That's the first time it's been that way since the year 2000.
Housing starts are strong, and also consumer confidence. People are saying people are concerned about the economy, but they're out there buying the most expensive thing that they will own in their lives, which are homes. So, how depressed could they be?
HARRIS: And that's been the case all throughout the entire ups and downs we've seen.
SERWER: That's correct, and the low rates are doing it.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Andy.
SERWER: OK, see you.
COLLINS: Sounds pretty good. All right, Andy Serwer, thanks so much.
HARRIS: See you in a bit.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
