JustaNumber
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
- Posts
- 922
Martha Stewart on the other hand........
It's ironic that you bring up Martha, as I was just thinking about how this case is remarkably similar to Martha's, both in terms of the reason for the media/public fascination for it, and the necessary government response.
If you think about it, both involved a person or persons who had a national reputation for always doing the right thing, being the perfect professionals, but then got caught doing the opposite, with a cavalier attitude that either the rules didn't apply to them, or that they would never get caught. Both lied in the initial investigation. It was like the fascination with pedophile priests; it just seems so contradictory.
The government response in both cases was completely necessary. If they hadn't thrown the book at Martha, giving just a wink and a nod at the insider trading, corruption in this country would have increased exponentially, and we would be well on the way to becoming Mexico. But now how many times have you heard Martha's example brought up when insider trading issues come up? Her example did more to keep corporate officers clean than thousands of pages of government regulations ever could have. Same goes for the pilots.