New Word: Let's Call It What It Is

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 |

Doesn't it make your heart sing to know that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has missed repeated warnings about the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme over the last decade? Kudos to the regulators for looking the other way!

There has been much talk about the deregulation precept of free market fundamentalism as one of the causes for the current economic mess (including, in the above case, lack of transparency). Though the term "deregulation" is certainly an appropriate one, I would like to call it a more direct term: lawlessness. Laws were stripped away to curb greed and excess and protect consumers.

I assume that you, the reader, are not a big fan of lawlessness in your neighborhood, your children's schools, the stores that you shop at, or anywhere else for that matter. We are a nation of laws and we must abide by them or suffer the consequences, because as humans, we are not innately self-governing or self-correcting. Why the heck are the markets any different (especially when there are so many humans involved)?

0 comments: