Regulation or Strangulation
November 10th, 2009 by Grandpa OddballCopyright © GetOddNews and Grandpa Oddball November 10, 2009. All rights reserved.
This sorry situation didn’t just happen overnight. It took years of bad policies, arrogance, self-delusion and corruption. By corruption I don’t mean necessarily illegal bribes though that played a small part. No, I’m talking about far more insidious, dangerous and effective corruption which plagues the system.
Let’s start with money, greed and misplaced idealism. A huge combination of vested interests, fuzzy thinking and poor scholarship combined to corrupt the current system. When greed is involved money flows like water to buy politicians and regulators by
- Creating cushy and lucrative jobs for these people once their terms of service are terminated provided they “play ball”.
- Direct campaign contributions are made to those politicians that promote laws and investigations which benefit the greedy vested interests. In short many politicians value their political careers above service to their constituents so they promote the interests of their campaign contributers rather than the public at large.
- Hand in glove with the previous observation is that campaign support is supplied via such vehicles as PACs and other methods in order to elect officials the vested interests can control. This has become so pervasive that the vested interests actually write some of this damaging legislation.
- Enormous sums are spent on lobbyists, pseudo trade and consumer groups, and lawyers (not to mention various media) to not just influence regulatory legislation and rules but in some cases to actually write the legislation. In principle this isn’t bad. Everyone is entitled to access the regulatory system and entitled to a fair hearing but when coupled with the nefarious practices listed the other bullets we all suffer. When greed and money are involved the rest of us have little opportunity to present our case.
- Favors such as vacations, junkets and parties paid for by industry groups are used, in effect, to buy favorable votes.
- The worst part about this situation is the financing of foreign governments and multinational corporations with taxpayer dollars which are then used to manipulate our legislators and regulators exacerbating and accelerating the situation. It is difficult to trace this money because it is often funneled though multinational corporations in order to hide the true monetary source and amounts (one of the “benefits” of our crazy free trade policies).
- There is a network of interlocking corporate directors allied with the regulatory agencies and congressional representatives that place their own interests above the nations. Whether by group think, shared greed or overt conspiracy this group acts in concert to protect each other while legally robbing us blind. Effectively forming monopolistic like coalitions these coalitions prevent competitive markets from forming which is the essence of capitalism’s success. The latest but certainly not the last public incarnation of this is “cash for clunkers” and the TARP bailouts.
Nor is this where the money trail stops. In state after state ballot measures are proposed to perpetuate the status quo. Enormous sums of money are spent to pass these measures. Often a technique used (invented) by the NAZIs called the BIG LIE is used. Basically if you tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough then people start to give it credence.
Note these propaganda techniques not used exclusively at election time but are promoted all year long, year after year, creating a kind of gradual acceptance of such nefarious ideas as the dogma of “free trade” and unrestricted “free” marketplaces which in fact isn’t very free from market manipulation. And when the absurdity nay the danger of the economic situation is pointed out then these techniques are used to smear the accuser rather than meaningfully address the issues. In spite of this situation I have to say we brought the situation on ourselves to a large extent by being suckered by the charlatans. Remember the old saying, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice same on me”. We’ve been fooled so many times that it has become a shameful habit.
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Tags: Economics, free trade, politics
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