Bernie Ebbers, you were CEO of the wrong company.

To state that we are in a financial crisis is to put it mildly. Every day we hear $700 billion. Today we saw the market plunge 777 points. Is there something with 7's? Obviously, it's not a lucky number after all. I keep thinking...how do they, the government "they," arrive at $700 billion dollars? Where did this number come from? I have the answer, but you have to keep reading....

I don't even want to look at my 401k statement. Ignorance is bliss. But, you know, this crisis reminds me of a couple of guys who cooked their books and and rode regulation and deregulation like a cowboy on a mechanical bull. Well, they did ride, until the Wall Street Music stopped and those things called numbers....those good, old, truthful numbers, once again proved to never, ever lie.

Remember Enron and WorldCom? After a couple of whistle blowers were heard, there was a stampede of lawyers, forensic accountants, auditors and politicians breathing down these companies books/backs. These two companies were the impetus for Sarbanes-Oxley. Many consumers, employees and investors lost their pensions, retirement savings, investments and jobs because of Bernie's and Ken's oversight, or lack thereof, of the financial reporting and profits that were practiced by a couple of their renegade CFO's...or so we are to believe. Bernard Ebbers, I hear, is in some comfy, white collar prison in the South. And, Ken Lay? Well, the stress got to him and he passed away of a heart attack before he was sentenced.

Does this financial story sound familiar? I don't think I am painting with a broad brush, so, let me just cut to the chase. I am surprised that there hasn't been an investigation into the obvious fraud and corruption that had taken place in Fannie and Freddie. More surprisingly, Franklin Raines, CEO of Fannie, was fired by "regulators" over "accounting problems" and walked away with a severance package from Fannie of $19 million dollars. Now, that is $19 million more than the $90 million he collected between 1998 and 2003.

If I do my forensic math correctly, Franklin Raines, in 5 years at Fannie Mae, earned, $109 million. Fannie Mae's accounting "practices" between 2001-2004 forced them to restate over $6.3 billion dollars in accounting errors. Yes, you heard me $6.3 Billion clams. Now, I know, I know, Worldcom was $11 billion clams. But, I have to stop and ask myself, would Bernie rather be in a "comfy" white collar prison, or would he rather be Senator Obama's economic advisor.



I am Miss Tory, and I approve of this message.

Okay, here is the answer if you are just reading this to get to this:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE6D9103EF930A15756C0A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=