WHAT'S FAIR IS FAIR

In 2001, a huge American corporation failed and thousands of people lost their jobs and some lost a good chunk of their life savings. The failure of Enron Corporation and with it, one of the so-called Big Five accounting firms, Arthur Anderson, was a huge scandal. It was rightly blamed on corrupt management and fraudulent independent accounting. We all thought that safeguards were in place to prevent or give warning that something like this was going to happen. Wrong!

The Congress of the United States sprang into action and passed the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002 giving all public businesses new guidelines in accounting practices and reporting. It also established stiffer penalties for corrupt management and a new bureaucracy called the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to regulate, oversee, inspect and discipline public accounting firms. This law has cost American businesses millions of dollars in the last six years. Its impossible to estimate its value.

We now have an equivalent scandal involving two Government Sponsored Enterprises; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Many are out of work and millions of dollars have been lost - so far. The federal government itself was in charge of overseeing these operations. I can't wait to see what Congress does this time - besides give away our money, that is.
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