Sub primes - Covering up with political backing

Look at the stock markets now. And look at what the American government tried to do.

When China covered up on the SARS and melamine scares, every one (almost) felt that China shouldn't have done that. But when the Americans covered up on the impact of their sub prime problems on the economic health of the world, the comments were a lot more muted.

I guess the difference is that in SARS and the melamine cases, there were actual human deaths directly relating to those incidents, whereas in the current sub prime fiasco, there aren't any DIRECT deaths, although the indirects harm that it has done to the modern world is beyond the imagination of any one of us.


There's Bernanke, Paulson and all the wise people with unquestionable credentials in a regulatory capacity who chose to remain silent about the impact of the sub prime crisis until a year after it first surfaced. Considering that these people have intimate knowledge of their financial systems, they should have had more notice than the rest of us prior to the problem surfacing in the public domain. So did they try to "cover up" thinking that it can be contained? Are they not as guilty as the Chinese officials who tried to cover up on SARS and melamine contamination in milk out of China?

We can't help Asians feeling like the Western media is stringing them up to roast at every opportunity for whatever cover-ups the governments of Asia do, the Western media seem to feed on it like a pack of vultures. But when there's a foul up in the Western world, not dissimilar to those in Asia, somehow, someone will be able to "guide" them into looking at things in a different perspective.

Is this less harmful and/or less severe than China's covering up of the SARS crisis? Or the melamine contamination issue still running hot in all the presses? Did the Americans elect a President who cannot appoint competent officials to look after their economy? What about all those checks and balances in Congress and the Senate? Didn't any of those learned men and women smell something fishy when the first sub prime defaults started to surface? How could the officials have taken JUST one weekend -- an American weekend when every American is supposed to be spending time with their families -- to sort out Bear Stearns? Even the best of brains would have had to do some preparatory work! Did they have an inkling as to what's happened and what's required? Surely they must have been prepared.

IS this a case of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to disclosure for the interests of the rest of the world? Perhaps.

But we will never know, will we?