April 13, 2007

Are there triple standards too?

Sir, I have just sat through a two day seminar in Washington organized by the World Bank Institute on the “Effects of mass media on public policy”, listening to conclusions of research papers that, among other, track media bias using tools such as counting how many times some word appears or do not appear in the context of the discussion of some specific theme.

Richard Beales, in “A whiff of double standards”, April 13, assigns the responsibility for the sub-prime mortgage mess in the following way “Some borrowers have no doubt misled by brokers. Some brokers have surely misled borrowers. Some lenders have been lax and some investment banks may have been blasé and glossed over a few risks in selling securities.” That “borrowers and brokers mislead” while investment bankers are merely blasé might raise some eyebrows, but, what the word counters of tomorrows would most notice, is that the credit rating agencies and those that gave the agencies so much power, are not even mentioned. Are there triple standards too?