Thursday, July 17, 2008

Governmental Double Standard

If you've been following the news you no doubt can't get away from the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac story. Remember a few short years ago, Enron was all over the news and was trashed by everyone and their mother for cooking the books to the tune of $567 million. Government hearing, firings, damnation by the media and our government. Fast forward a few years to two government-run mortgage companies, one of which, Fannie Mae, has upped that to $6.2 BILLION and our government is bailing them out? No one's been fired. No one's been raked over the coals. No one's been brought before Congress. Then we have the media ignoring the fact that this scandal is much bigger than Enron. But I guess since the Bush administration has 0 connections to either Fannie or Freddie, it's not that important.


Robocop said...

A selective government? Say it isn't so.

Indian Chris said...

I know. Also the unthinkable prospect of a selective media. It's crazy.

R said...

Is the Enron thing a fair comparison?

The reason I'm asking is that (apart from my understanding of Enron being limited to the Doco 'Smartest Guys in the Room' and a bit of media stuff - I don't take news reports seriously) is that Enron was a small number of people actively trying to screw the system/state of Califoria/etc. Where as this whole mortgage mess is more a matter of negligence and some people ignoring the consequences of their actions. Is that an accurate description?

I know that most legal systems don't make distinction between 'act' and 'omission', but it makes is harder to find and prosecute a culprit if it was a lot of people who didn't want to know the collective consequences of unsafe loans, rather than two guys and a room full of lackeys trying to find creative ways screw-things-up/hold a state to ransom?

I'm just wondering if it's a fair comparison on the things that count? Or whether it is a double standard (anyone expect to hear me defend your current government?)
...but as I said earlier, my understanding of Enron is largely limited to that Doco ('smartest guys in the room' - wasn't bad if you like horror films!).