The free-market subterfuge

Sad to say, but it’s hard to refute one of their main propaganda points: Regulation
doesn’t work. It doesn’t but it should. We don’t need to look very far to see
the mortal danger of uninhibited commerce. We can compile a long list of
examples from the news … a list of companies where any concern for the lives
and welfare of everyone else has been overridden by careless and shameless greed.

It includes, of course, British Petroleum, Toyota and Johnson and Johnson — oh,
and its subsidiary that makes CHILDREN’S healthcare products.

Let’s not forget the bankers and other money changers, the health insurance
companies and at least one coal company.

They are all regulated to some degree, at least theoretically. The problem is
that in practice, the agencies that are supposed to oversee them have been
often paralyzed, compromised by a culture that condones slothfulness and even
corruption. We can easily come up with a list here with initials: MMS, which
stands for Minerals Management Service, but we know it’s really MISmanagement.

NHTSA … the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, where the
“T” obviously did NOT mean “Toyota” safety.

They are easy marks for the industries that want to avoid any controls,
particularly when their bought-and-paid-for politicians create laws with
loopholes big enough for an 80-year-old running back.

Those who contend regulation is ineffective are often right on the money. Unfortunately,
it’s our money.

What do we do? Boycott the miscreants? That would be worth considering, but it
won’t work. There are so many of them we wouldn’t be able to buy what’s
necessary to live in today’s world. They have metastasized through our entire
system.

There is only one solution. We need to get smarter. We must reject all the shopworn
arguments that reasonable protections by government are un-American in one way
or another. It’s important that we pay attention to who’s doing what in all
those backroom deals and demand a full and public accounting by our public
officials.

We must constantly monitor those we pay to monitor and be responsible for
industry. It’s not too much to insist they are competent and do their job. We
can’t let them get so burrowed into their workforce they can’t be pried out or
shielded by impenetrable walls of bureaucracy.

And we have to pass laws that truly punish those who steal from us. Unfortunately,
dangerous and negligent fraud is not always a crime. It should be.

Contrary to the apologists, the unfetteredly free market they defend with their
platitudes is anything but free. We are paying a huge price.

Visit Mr. Franken’s website at www.bobfranken.tv.