We might be our own problem. As much fear as government overreach inspires; we should be equally afraid of a lack of government regulation. Recently, the Supreme Court overturned a law limiting the rights of corporations to buy political ads. Well, the gloves are off, and KDR Development in Texas has bought a series of advertising against a candidate. We’ll now be influenced by nameless, faceless organizations with no responsibility to the public good? In my opinion, unregulated corporate support influence over elections is the first step towards idiocracy. When the corporations are deciding who our elected representatives should be, how far are we really from this: (Wait until the clip starts after the commercial.)
We want complete freedom, but complete freedom still favors the inordinately wealthy. Your government”¦ brought to you by Waste Management.
…and who was in “waste management?” Tony Soprano.
A fictional character to be sure, but illustrative of the Pandora’s box we’ve thrown open.
Sue is reading Harry Markopolos’s book about how he blew the whistle on Madoff but the SEC was seemingly asleep. Our regulatory agencies have been systematically gutted, only the naive would say they haven’t been corrupted. Seems to me that a nexus of finance, government, and laundered money are what allowed Madoff to get away with it for so long. Where does one end and the other begin? I mean, he was a founder of NASDAQ while running the Ponzi scheme.
Once Markopolos ran an analysis of Madoff’s supposed returns, he says it took him about 15 minutes to realize it was bogus.
Want to see where we’re going? Check out Jennifer Government by Max Barry. It’s a short fictional work, but shows where things go when companies take over. I give it 30 or 40 years before it gets to this point, given the state of the law and culture as it is.