Daily Archives: June 22, 2004

Stros win third in a row

Posted on by
Reply

The struggling Stros are showing signs of life thanks to the lowly Pirates as they reeled off their third win in a row at the Juice Box on Tuesday night, 5-4.
Roy O pitched a gutty eight innings, giving up nine hits but no walks, and threw an incredible 24 first pitch strikes to the 33 batters that he faced. Morgan Ensberg came up with the key hit, a two out, two run triple in the seventh that came after the Stros had left a bushel full of runners on base in scoring position with less than two outs throughout the game.
You have to feel good for Ensberg getting the big hit, but the reality is that he has been extremely disappointing this season, with no yaks (after hitting 25 taters last season) and a paltry slugging percentage of .358, which is the same as the light-hitting Viz. In comparison, Barry Bonds, Jr.’s is slugging at an incredible .633 and Bidg, Bags and Kent are all ranging between .470 and .510, which is where Ensberg should be.
Pete Munro takes the hill tomorrow night as the Stros try to keep it going in the third game of the four game set with the Bucs. After the Thursday game, the Stros travel to Arlington for the first part of their annual home and home series with the Rangers.

Chiseling in on Oscar Wyatt’s Enron asset play

Posted on by
Reply

Reuters reported Tuesday that Enron Corp. has received an offer for its CrossCountry Energy unit from an unidentified “investment-grade company” that is substantially larger than the earlier bid that Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt’s company made earlier this year. This Chronicle story reports that the new suitor for the assets is Southern Union Co.
Wyatt and his financial partners (which includes Citigroup) offered Enron $2.2 billion for CrossCountry, a collection of Enron’s North American natural gas pipelines. The Wyatt offer included $1.74 billion in cash, the assumption of $461 million in debt, and a $25 million “stalking horse” fee if Wyatt’s group were to be outbid for the pipelines.
The new offer includes about $55 million more in cash and is not conditioned on the payment of a “stalking horse” fee. Consequently Enron’s largest unsecured creditors are now requesting that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez accept the new offer instead of the bid from the Wyatt-led consortium. A hearing is scheduled on the matter this Thursday in New York.

Enron criminal defendants: This is your Judge!

Posted on by
Reply

One U.S. District Judge is doing something about the federal sentencing guidelines.
Here is the opinion.
Here is a follow-up NY Times article on the opinion.

Another tax shelter lawsuit

Posted on by
Reply

This NY Times article reports on the latest investor lawsuits that seek damages from German financial giant Deutsche Bank and several accounting, law and financial services firms — including American Express — for selling abusive tax shelters from 1999 to 2001. The investor plaintiffs in both cases, who collectively owe the federal government millions of dollars in back taxes as a result of the tax shelters being disallowed, are seeking to recover fees, interest and penalties.
Let’s see if I understand the theory of the plaintiffs’ case in these lawsuits. We rich people make speculative invesments in tax shelters to save big bucks from non-payment of taxes. We know that the deals are shady, but what the heck, we don’t like paying taxes. Now that the tax shelters have been disallowed, we should not have to pay the taxes that we owed in the first place. Rather, these financial institutions should have to pay for indulging our greedy desire not to pay our share of taxes. How dare they take advantage of us like that?
Only in America.