This is great article — if you thought there was a single factor that caused the mess we are in, this just might be the smoking gun:
Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk
The entire article eviscerates the SEC and its pro-business, pro-deregulation chairman Christopher Cox:
The commission’s decision effectively to outsource its oversight to the firms themselves fit squarely in the broader Washington culture of the last eight years under President Bush.
A similar closeness to industry and laissez-faire philosophy has driven a push for deregulation throughout the government, from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency to worker safety and transportation agencies.
I love my conservative friends dearly, but I really will never understand the way a Republican’s brain works: they say they want government out of people’s private lives, but the party platform wants a constitutional ban on gay marriage and abortion (and I would think choosing your mate and what you want to do to your own body is about as private as you can get).
They want government out of people’s pocketbooks, but that idea of de-regulation and hoping that the markets will police themselves is the ultimate example of naivete and cluelessness.
They want to regulate what should not be regulated, and don’t want to regulate what should be. There is certainly enough criticism about liberalism, but I think I’ve framed the conservative ideology pretty succinctly.
Tags: financial crisis, idiots, republicans, SEC