The Obama administration plans to ask Congress for the authority to take over financial institutions in distress, expanding its existing powers to include insurance companies and other less-regulated market players, officials said on Tuesday.All that shit is fine, but it won't matter worth a damn if the regulators are asleep at the switch. The regulators under the Bush Administration turned a blind eye to everything. The SEC refused to investigate reports of securities fraud. The FDA didn't inspect food plants. (You think it's a coincidence that the last the the FDA inspected that peanut processing plant was in 2001?) The FAA was "partnering" with airlines instead of "inspecting" them. The Comptroller of the Currency did everything it could to reduce oversight of banks. The Federal Reserve was doing nothing at all. The Department of Defense fired auditors who were making life uncomfortable for contractors.
And the list goes on and on.
Congress can pass all of the laws and provide for all the regulation it chooses, but if we get another administration of thugs and scofflaws like the last Bush Administration, we will be right back where we find ourselves today.
4 comments:
Agreed.
Totally.
But don't you hold a little optimism about this administration? The previous 8 years were marked by foxes guarding the henhouse - Mark Rey, Gale Norton, et al. The Republican Right laissez-faire mentality is very different (I hope) than the "we need regulators to keep 'em honest" Democrat philosophy. Any good community organizer worth his salt knows that government oversight can protect citizens if it's done properly.
I just can't see Joe Biden making the same kind of threatening calls to those in the executive branch that Cheney did, ordering them to suppress any information which would be disadvantageous to polluters.
Can you, Comrade?
I do, indeed, but that's not the thrust of my post. If we get another fool like the Chimperor (and based on the GOP's bench, one day we will), all of the regulations won't help when the Chief Executive fills the Federal government with graduates of the Jesus Rode a Brontosaurus colleges.
(Is it wrong that I would wear the Hell out of a "Jesus ROde a Brontosaurus" college sweatshirt?)
It would be fun to wear one to a biology class.
One of the mandatory (and biggest time-wasters) in law school was the ethics course. I sat in the front row with a large coffee mug that had the legend: "Save Oxygen. Shut Up."
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