It sucks but is also how most things work. You and I and every other American purchases goods and services and has a 401K or an IRA and the proceeds from the money we spend or save is used by corporate America to give us a screwing. The money used to influence our lawmakers via campaign contributions in particular is used most commonly in support of legislation that isn't to the advantage of middle class citizens. Having had our system evolve in this way is over the top absurd. This is why I keep saying time and again big business is not a citizen and has no right to lobby our legislators. The interests they pursue are not the interests of citizens. At least to me, nothing could be more apparent. Along those same lines we have a regulatory scheme in place that has the regulators and the regulated all but indistinguishable from each other. The notion of regulation implies an adversarial relationship. The one that actually exists is anything but. Does anyone really think someone could run a company and defraud the public to the tune of 50 billion dollars otherwise? Why do we continue to have persons who are born and bred of Wall Street holding down the top financial jobs in government? In spite of all that has happened, all across government none of our lawmakers, not even Obama, seems willing to truly grapple with this obvious conflict.

Through the 1950s and into the early 1960s we had a government where there was a regulatory climate in place that actually worked. During the early 1960s that all began to change and has done so ever since.

These are very basic ideas and are at the core of why things are so messed up. Virtually everything government does is tainted by this conflicted relationship. For four decades every politician has paid lip service to this but nothing has changed and in fact the condition of conflict has become more pronounced. Unfortunately, most people are too young to recognize how this has evolved and have no basis with which to make this comparison. In that regard the majority is unaware of what has occurred. Our government has allowed these businesses to grow very large and very powerful and turns a blind eye to their in your face conduct that factually works against the majority population and the nation. And the outcome is as one would expect.