Letters to the Editor
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Age of Deregulation?
I object to the description of this as "the age of deregulation". The United States is the most regulated place on the planet, our only competition being maybe Europe. And Shrub & Co. have done nothing to slow the increasing spiral of regulation, law, and other governmental control on the body politic. What the current bozos in power have done is not deregulation, which is the reduction or elimination of regulation, but regulation in favor of certain industries that provide generous political contributions which is not the same thing at all. I've always found it interesting that I could be sued if someone slips and falls on my sidewalk which I don't own because the city has taken an easment for it but I cannot hold a corporation liable if my personal data which they are controlling is then used to perpetrate identity theft on me. Why is that?
To understand Enron, you need to go back a century to the trust busting days. Enron was as big and powerful as Standard Oil without John D. Rockefeller's business acumen. The government broke up the trusts because they were too large and getting to powerful. Like the 800 pound gorilla who can sit anywhere he wants, size engenders power. This nostrum applies to corporations and governments.
If you want to stop the excesses, both governmental and corporate, we need to make things smaller and more managable.