Brainwaves of Sken

Rooting out corruption and fraud was in their own self-interest. In the event of financial wrongdoing, they insisted, they would do their civic duty and protect the markets. But in late 2006, well before many of the other players on Wall Street realized what was going on, the top dogs at Goldman — including the aforementioned Viniar — started to fear they were sitting on a time bomb of billions in toxic assets. Yet instead of sounding the alarm, the very first thing Goldman did was tell no one. And the second thing it did was figure out a way to make money on the knowledge by screwing its own clients.

THIS is what worries me. We live in a world in which, more and more, we are expecting our own industries to self-regulate because it is in their supposed best interest to do so.

The reality is that corruption and fraud has proven to be so incredibly lucrative, and the punishment for fraud so completely nonexistent that it’s almost the fiscal duty of executives in major corporations to participate in fucking over everyone down the line, from their investors to their clients, and ultimately the system at large.

And we, as Americans, won’t do anything about it. We trust our American companies even when they screw us, just like we trust our politicians even as they take away rights that we’ve taken for granted for hundreds of years. We trust that they are really doing it for our best interest.

We need to be skeptical. We need to ask questions, to follow up, to assume the worst and protect ourselves. That is why we have “tangles” of regulation – because without it, a company knows that so much more money can be made screwing over their employees, their retired employees, and everyone else that a few hundred thousand in legal costs is nothing in comparison. Totally worth it.

If you think I’m being a little extreme, I encourage you to read the article. Think about how our state and our country continues to push for less and less regulation, and where that has gotten us so far.

This is just as depressing, to me, as hearing our governor talk about how slashing medicaid by 2/3rds won’t magically cause people to stop receiving treatment. As if that money would ever come out of anyone’s pocket but the consumer – consumers who have, by definition, no money to give. Just as depressing as our federal legislators declaring as a whole that there is no such thing as global warming (or severe climate change, if you will). Not even a matter of man-made or not, that it outright doesn’t exist, decades of science notwithstanding.

The reason our government is supposed to be divided from religious and commercial ventures is because their motivation is supposed to be to protect their constituency. I don’t think it works that way anymore, especially when someone can be in a top position in the FCC, pushing strongly against the regulation or restriction of a merger that will ruin competition in the cable marketplace, and then four months later leave to become a lobbyist for that company (Comcast).

Sorry to be a little ranty, but this stuff genuinely keeps me up at night. Our laws aren’t protecting us, our politicians are impotent and ineffective, if not outright corrupt, and any hard-nosed journalism that is left after the gutting and massive consolidation of the industry is too busy looking outward at three wars to give a damn about what is happening here.

I don’t know if there’s anywhere to turn to anymore, except to tuck in and protect your own… and that makes me part of the problem.

~ by Skennedy on May 14, 2011.

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