CORPORATE SCANDALS PALE IN COMPARISON TO GOVERNMENT FRAUD

Source: Ayn Rand Institute, October 07, 2002
By:By: Robert Tracinski

IRVINE, CA – “The current frenzy over corporate accounting scandals is not a reaction to fraud--it's an attack on business and capitalism,” said Robert Tracinski, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

The people leading the hysteria about corporate crime are eager to expose and condemn any alleged fraud by private businessmen--but they ignore or excuse actual fraud committed by government officials. They demand strict accounting regulations to prevent billion-dollar business frauds--while they evade responsibility for a trillion-dollar government fraud.

Tracinski points to the world’s largest fraudulent scheme, Social Security, which is run not by a corrupt corporation, but by the United States government. “The Social Security program takes one-eighth of the income of the current generation of workers and promises them a secure retirement--to be paid for by fleecing the next generation of workers.

“Eventually, as with any such scheme, the number of new suckers coming into the system is not enough to pay the benefits owed to retirees. This is projected to happen in the next 10 to fifteen years, causing Social Security to go bankrupt--but no one in Washington is demanding an end to Social Security.

“To tolerate wholesale fraud and theft by government--while posing as a moralistic crusader against fraud by private businesses--is a con game that makes the crowd at Enron look like small-timers.”

Source:  Ayn Rand Institute