Political returns: Washington wants to manage your 401(k) account.

• Author: Lynch, Michael W.
• Position: Columns

ENRON OFFICIALLY BECAME the winter's leading media circus when Jesse Jackson, the nation's pre-eminent itinerant clown, arrived to pray with Enron's fallen CEO, Kenneth Lay, and to rally former employees. The Enron show could have been custom-choreographed for Washington: A large company, run by dishonest and greedy men, exploited weak employees. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) played to his home crowd in The Boston Globe. "As Enron stock fell from a high of over $90 to less than $I a share, the company prevented workers from selling at every turn," he wrote. "As a matter of policy, Enron did not allow employees under 50 to sell the Enron stock from their 401(k) retirement plans."

Crossfire co-host Bill Press was even more over the top. "The human impact is staggering;" he declared in a syndicated column. "Some 4,500 employees out of work. Tens of thousands of investors watched their Enron stock sink suddenly from $83 per share to 26 cents, wiping out $6o billion in stockholder value. And those 11,000 employees whose 401(k) funds were invested exclusively in Enron--and who were forbidden by Enron's own rules from diversifying--today have no retirement plan at all."

Those wronged employees and retirees are not hard to find. Fortune introduced 61-year-old Marie Thibaut, an Enron administrative assistant for 15 year. At one point, her 401(k) was worth nearly $500,000. Today it's valued at $22,000, and she has shelved plans for early retirement.

Bill Quinlan, who called it quits eight years back, appeared in The Washington Post. He kept his entire retirement portfolio invested in Enron stock. At its peak, his portfolio approached $1 million. It's not worth much today.

Tom Padgett, a 59-year-old lab analyst, showed up in the pages of USA Today and elsewhere. When he checked his 401(k) in 2000, it was worth $615,000. Today it's down to $10,000. He too replaced plans to retire with plans for another decade of work.

These stories, along with his mother-in-law's

$8,000 loss, have touched President Bush. "Employees who have worked hard and saved all of their lives should not have to risk losing everything if their company fails;" he declared in his State of the Union speech. Two days later he proposed new regulations for 401(k) plans.

Wipe your eyes, and keep the call for more federal controls in your throat. As usual, much is missing from this story.

Nothing in the Kennedy or Press quotes about Enron's 401(k) plan is accurate. It's not true that...