It seems clear that most Democrats (and at least for a few weeks John McCain) believe that the federal government should regulate the financial sector. But to what end?
Everyone should know that setting the goals of regulation is not only the first step, it is the hardest step. So what would be the goals of regulating banks, or insurance companies, or investment banks, or mortgage lenders?
This from a well-known Harvard Business School professor:
"Wall Street is the symbol of an industry which for years has described itself as being controlled by a balance between fear and greed. Indeed, the people who talk this way seem to take pride in it.
Any industry that can cause such trouble and which takes into account only fear and greed in its operation is begging for someone to speak up for the public interest. They have dared the government to regulate them. It is a dare that they must lose.
One might also add that any business that markets itself as "too big to fail" is also too big to be unregulated.
Free Marketeers forever quote Adam Smith's famed "invisible hand" metaphor. They interpret Smith to be saying that the sum of everyone acting selfishly will be the public good. If we have learned anything from the mess in which we find ourselves now, it is the untruth of that belief. To achieve a thriving economy - to build a society of which we can be proud - we have to use the brains God gave us. That means positive, active, assertive, informed governmental action. For decades, one political party has told us that government is the problem, not the solution. They certainly aren't acting that way now."
Richard S. Tedlow
Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
The bottom line for the Bush Administration is that it has not fulfilled its primary purposes: it did not improve the standard of living for most Americans; it was hardly a prudent steward of the taxpayers' money; it did not carefully regulate financially institutions that are important to the well-being of our economy; and it did not suppress foreign terrorism or catch bin Laden.
John McCain would be not just more of the same, but much worse. Of the many concerns about his candidacy, perhaps the most damning is that he does not realize that at a fundamental level the critical trends that underlie the future of our economy and society need to be changed. We are heading in the wrong direction, and yet John McCain thinks it is the right direction, and would have us move faster down the declining path.
Television broadcasters do not have to run advertisements that are plainly false. No law or regulation requires that they do so, as far as I know. Perhaps the FCC general counsel, or some academic, can double-check this question.
In any case, why don't members of Congress with oversight responsibilities ask broadcasters not to run plainly false ads? Or to set off the deception by giving equal time to the candidate lied about?
Senator Leiberman asked Google to cause YouTube not to run certain clips that the Senator deemed to incite violence. They agreed. That was a good step on both sides.
So why doesn't anyone ask broadcasters to agree not to permit this all-important election to sink to a level of deceit unworthy of the democracy generations have sought to save, and that our brave men and women are fighting for even now?
Very few people repeat untruths and misstatements over and over. When they do, they have to be held to intend to mislead, conceal, or deceive. So then we can call their untruths by the word "lies."
Why should Americans not choose liars as their leaders? Everyone in any walk of life will from time to time say something that isn't perfectly true. On minor matters, or when there's an innocent explanation, we overlook such behavior.
But when those who seek leadership positions lie about (1) important matters, like their own attitudes toward government waste or national security or the economy or global warming or education or the First Amendment, and (2) their only possible motive is a desire to deceive their countrymen (since they've been informed that their statements are inaccurate), then we know they are not qualified to lead.
A democracy cannot survive with inveterate liars in high office. Nor can our culture: as Americans we want truth-telling to be the standard set on high for all to observe and emulate.
