More Special Rules for Fannie Mae?

A banner headline and photo in the Business section of the Washington Post show former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling reporting to prison to begin serving a 24-year term for fraud and conspiracy. (Note that federal sentences don't allow for much parole; Skilling must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.) Sidebars depict other jailed corporate executives: Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom, 25 years; Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, 8 to 25 years; John Rigas of Adelphia, 15 years (being appealed).

On the same page, another story reports:

Three years ago, Fannie Mae assured lawmakers that it had the required capital to cope with a broad variety of business setbacks.

Since 1992, "Fannie Mae has met or exceeded our capital requirements in every year," Franklin D. Raines, then its chief executive, testified in September 2003. "Indeed, we are one of the best-capitalized financial institutions in the world, when compared to the risk of our business."

As it turns out, the assurance was false.

Will Raines and other executives face lengthy jail terms for their repeated and massive accounting misrepresentations, which resulted in multi-million-dollar bonuses for the executives? It doesn't look likely. Criminal charges against the company itself have been ruled out. The government may seek to recover millions of dollars from executives who received massive bonuses on the basis of the manipulated earnings statements, but there seem to be no plans to pursue criminal prosecution of these sophisticated Washington insiders.

There may well be good legal reasons why Enron and WorldCom executives were guilty of crimes punishable by 25 years in jail, while Fannie Mae executives were guilty only of outrageous behavior. But one can't help wondering if the difference is related to yet another tiny story in the Post's Business section on the same day: "Fannie Breaks Record On Lobbying Outlay."

Some background on the fundamental problems with Fannie Mae and other government-sponsored enterprises here.