Larry:
Hope all is ok with your current situation.  I hope you know you can take any time off necessary to deal with the matter.  
 
Congrats on the great deal Monday and I appreciate the heads up before transacting that size deal.
 
I'm sorry you missed the mtg monday afternoon.  I want to sum up what my thoughts are and what I've learned over the past couple days.  First of all, I'm very disappointed in some of the current but mostly former employees of this company.  I think we, in gas trading, have made great efforts to create a very strong and profitable franchise without ever compromising our integrity. 
While I do not believe any fraud nor illegal activity has occurred, I do believe Enron pushed the gray area more than was necessary in some of these dealings.  And while I don't believe Fastow acted unethically or inappropriately in these dealings (and I may be wrong), I do think the presence of a conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety should have precluded him from these entering into these transactions.  There is a reason why Enron employees are not allowed to trade energy commodities for their own account.  It is not because Enron does not trust its employees to do the right thing; it is an effort to prevent even the slightest allegation that an employee's first and foremost responsibility is not to the company.  That is where, in my opinion, Fastow errored.  
I think employee morale has been damaged for 3 reasons over the past year.  First, we are tired of bad business deals: India, South American assets, Azurix, broadband, etc.  Second, over this period of poor business judgment, some of the same individuals who made these decisions were very well compensated.  Third, I think there is a concern about the integrity of the organization and the top managers.  Rather than worry about the past, I prefer to look at the organization going forward.  The truth about the LJM matter will be brought forward through one or more of the following : legal courtroom, SEC investigation, internal Enron investigation, court of public opinion, court of Enron employees' opinion, and investigative journalism.  If any officers of the company acted inappropriately at any time, I can almost guarantee they will not have a future at this company.  I say that because I do believe in the current management.  The question you, as well as other employees need to be asking themselves, is twofold.  First, will the current problems affect the organization's abililty to conduct business in the future?  And second, has the culture of the organization changed over the past several years whereby these probems will not happen again?   As long as we can maintain our credit rating, which I believe we can, I believe this will have minimal effect to the trading business and little effect on Enron's business.  Our desire to conserve capital at this point to shore up the balance sheet means we won't be buying any hundred million dollar+ assets in the near future, which is probably a good thing.  The second question is just as important.  I will tell you honestly that had the management of this company of 2 years ago be in place today, I would not currently be an employee here.  Over the past couple years, the management turnover has been extremely beneficial.  Gone are  Pai, Hannon, Rice, Skilling, Sutton, etc. that had, with the exception of Skilling, limited intellectual ability, integrity, and drive.  The new management of Whalley, Lavorato, Sheriff, Fallon, and Delainey, in my opinion, is one of the most capable management teams in business today.  These are people that will make the right business decisions and are not afraid to act as individuals.  I do believe in this team and, so long Enron treats the trading organization well at the end of the year which I have no reason to believe otherwise, intend to continue our mission to create the most dominant energy trading franchise around.  
We all want to yell at someone for the debacle that has been created.  Unfortunatley, most of those people arent at the company anymore.  I do encourage you to go to the employee mtg tomorrow regardless of market conditions.  Enron values and needs your contributions, and thus it is important to me that you are comfortable with the organization going forward.  I think it is benficial to hear Enron's side of the story as well as what we read in the paper.  
John