Skilling to skeptical financial analyst, "Thanks asshole"

[Cocoa]

caught on tape.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3633089.html

<snip>

Jurors also heard a recording of an April 2001 conference call in which Skilling cursed at a Wall Street hedge-fund manager asking tough questions.

During the call, which has since become legendary on Wall Street, the irritated Richard Grubman pressed Skilling as to why he could not provide more details on Enron's finances.

"You know, you are the only financial institution that can't produce a balance sheet or a cash flow statement with their earnings," Grubman said. Skilling, laughing, shot back, "Thank you very much, we appreciate it ... asshole."

Koenig said they all just went on with the call and he later had the expletive deleted from as many copies of the taped call as possible.

When it was played in court, Skilling and his attorney Daniel Petrocelli smiled, Lay laughed and so did some of the jurors, though a few minutes later several jurors trained their eyes on Skilling.

more...

[saltpoint]

1. When it comes to the slang noun 'asshole,' I think it is more applicable

to CEOs and other corporate higher-ups who steal pensions and retirement benefits from their considerably lower-paid employees.

[gulliver]

3. Exactly! That's our word. We say it. They be it.

How can anyone look at Junior's whole life and not simply say, "Now there's an asshole." I mean, Bush is the Wikipedia pluperfect definition of "asshole." Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling? How about Tom DeLay? I mean we are talking Vonnegut mega-********* (apologies to Kurt V. for not being able to reproduce the eight-point true "asshole" picture).

I'm not kidding (very much). Bush is like the metaphysical singularity of assholishness. He is an asshole-shaped rent in the fabric of space-time. He is asshole and asshole is him.

[saltpoint]

4. I told one new DUer -- may God forgive me -- that the reason DUers

spell George W. Bush in their posts as just ' * ' is because the asterisk mark so resembles an asshole.

Dammit, I want to be proud of my country again. Under Dubya, that's a real tough project.

[Wilber_Stool]

2. And this is just

the beginning. This might be good.