Posted on 09/23/2008 5:01:17 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
After six of the worst years that an American Corporate CEO had ever experienced, on 5 July 2006, Kenneth Lay died of a heart attack. After defrauding thousands of investors, including those employed by his own corporation, he doesn’t rank as a man that anyone will miss.
He now lies dead, and his company may now be forever remembered as a laughing-stock of business ethics. However, given the recent behavior of the executive directors of Fannie Mae, I can’t help but thinking that Ken Lay’s poltergeist has to laugh at the hypocrisy as Washington’s progressives seek to get as far away from Fannie Mae’s fallout as they can possibly manage.
And who would Ken Lay’s malicious shade laugh at? All of those who sanctimoniously described Ken Lay as the prototypical evil capitalist, while lining up in droves to support the Presidential Candidacy of Senator Barack Obama (D – Fannie Mae).
Fannie Mae had already run afoul of the law in 2004, when Senator Obama came to DC to start his tenure in the Senate. That did nothing to prevent Senator Obama from receiving $132,000 in political contributions from the quasi-governmental entity over the next four years. At the time Obama entered the Senate, the following irregularities were already present at Fannie Mae.
Its huge and complex finances have come under fire for months, and last week the Securities and Exchange Commission found Fannie Mae had violated accounting rules and will need to restate earnings for the past four years.
The company has said the restatement may force it to record a loss of up to $9 billion over 2001 to 2004.
Fannie Mae endeavored towards all of this creative accounting under the stewardship of then-CEO Franklin Raines. Raines admitted no wrong doing and resigned saying only that mistakes were made. His pathetic non-admission follows below.
"Although to my knowledge the company has always made good faith efforts to get its accounting right, the SEC has determined that mistakes were made. By my early retirement, I have held myself accountable,"
The Washington Post describes the radioactive mess of financial toxicity left in the wake of Raines’ term as Fannie Mae CEO. First they detail the price paid by Raines.
Watching from outside the limelight has been frustrating, said Raines, who has not spoken publicly about Fannie Mae since being charged by federal regulators with manipulating Fannie Mae's earnings in 2006.
Well, call me a (decency edit) wahmbulance! I’m sure Bernie Ebbers wishes someone would cut him a spare hedge fund to play with as well. If you, me or the guy at the end of the bar named Norm tried this sort of crap, they’d lock us all up in the Federal Penitentiary nicknamed “The Butt-Slammer.”
Raines settled charges brought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight by agreeing this spring to pay $2 million and forfeiting $22.7 million in stock and other benefits. And though none of it will come out of his pocket -- the payment was covered by insurance -- he has not emerged unscathed. He and his wife of more than 25 years, Wendy, are separated. Their house, a 1910 colonial in Northwest Washington, is for sale.
Again, cry me a (radio edit) river! His entire legal penalty was covered by insurance! Perhaps the same company that prints up the “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards for monopoly sets underwrites that sort of policy. The Catholic Church used to write that sort of agreement. It was called an indulgence.
According to the WaPo, most of Fannie Mae’s shareholders couldn’t afford the Simony premiums that would allow them to make out as well as Franklin Raines did.
Its employees have watched the value of their stock holdings drop precipitously, and it is not clear whether the company has reached bottom. Many resent Raines and others who left in better times.
And so how have the noble liberal progressives who considered Ken Lay the Nicolae Carpathia of modern Wall Street reacted to this despicable lack of ethics displayed by the governing executives over at Fannie Mae? How has “The Party of Compassion” responded to cries for justice from the beleaguered shareholders and bankrupted Fannie Mae pensioners? According the WaPo, Senator Barack Obama has taken the following steps.
Two members of Mr. Obama's political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.
Congratulations Democrats! Your nominee reacts to the worst financial crisis to hit America in at least 15 years by calling up the fraud-mongers over at Fannie Mae Enron for advice on how to Yince a few more of the Goyim.
Senator Harry Reid stares at the immensity of this problem and makes like a good progressive and runs from the hard decisions like the British Army after The Battle of New Orleans. It’s hard not agree with his strategy. There is only one politician in Washington more bought out by Fannie Mae than Senator Obama. That would be Reid’s Senate Banking Chairman; Senator Christopher Dodd.
Speaker Pelosi tells America not to blame her for the state of the financial markets. It’s not as if The House of Representatives originates all budgetary, tax, and financial regulation from its Ways and Means Committee or anything. Don’t blame her, according to recent newspaper accounts; her Ways and Means Committee Chairman was asleep on the beach. Besides, it’s not as if Charlie Rangel can go around can mount a moral high horse about anyone else’s junk mortgages.
And then there’s that magical Obama plan to save us from the responsibility tethered to our own national stupidity over mortgages. He’s got a statement out on that. A statement saying he won’t release it out of respect for the yeoman work being done on this issue by Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke. I can only wonder why he couldn’t have shown Secretary of State Condalizza Rice the same level of respect with regards to the SOFA between the US and Iraq.
The Ghost of Enron Past isn’t laughing with you, progressives. I hope you all kneel down and enjoy it when Ken Lay’s Inimical Poltergeist skull-(strongly redacted) your supposed moral precepts.
Indeed.
Vanity: WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? THE CLAMMORING FOR DISMISSALS? THE INVESTIGATIONS BY CONGRESS?
BETTER yet — when will there be an investigation OF Congress?
What a great Article! BUMP
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