This is what we are up against...
I have been avoiding political blogging for a while now... I read a lot about politics and our government, but I try not to burden y'all with it. But there is something we need a solution to, and I am not sure how to go about it. Here is an example of the kind of problem I am talking about from, of course, the Enron debacle. This comes from a book I am reading The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power:
Stripped down to it's essentials, Enron's story is the story of a corporation that used political influence to remove government influence on it's operations...[snip]
Through the 1990s, the company and it's officials, chiefly former CEO Kenneth Lay, dumped huge amounts of money into the political process to help transform an unremarkable pipeline company into a powerhouse energy trader. After lobbying successfully for deregulation of electrical markets in several states, among them California, it began a campaign to deregulate the trading of energy futures.In the early 1990s several companies sought to exempt themselves from the Commodity Exchange Act's requirement that energy traders disclose information about their futures contracts to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the agency responsible for enforcing the act. Just over a week after Bill Clinton had defeated George Bush in the November 7th 1992 election the companies petitioned the CFTC, headed at the time by Wendy Gramm, to remove energy trading futures from it's jurisdiction. Gramm...was also potentially in conflict of interest - her husband, Texas senator Phil Gramm, was leading beneficiary of Enron's political largesse. She nonetheless brought the petition before her commission, which in January 1993 decided, by a vote of 2 to 1, in favor of Enron and the other petitioners... It "sets a dangerous precedent," Sheila Blair, the lone dissenter on the commission, said of the decision at the time. " It was the most irresponsible decision I have come across," said congressman Glen English, an eighteen-year veteran of the House and chair of the House subcommittee that governed Gramm's commission. Six days after she handed down her decision, on the day Bill Clinton took office Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Five weeks later, she was appointed to Enron's board of directors.
This sort of thing goes on all the time. Did you follow all of that? 'cause I had to read it twice. Combine that with the fact that deregulation was well marketed. So how do we, as Americans, stop this sort of thing? this is complicated stuff.
Stripped down to it's essentials, Enron's story is the story of a corporation that used political influence to remove government influence on it's operations...[snip]
Through the 1990s, the company and it's officials, chiefly former CEO Kenneth Lay, dumped huge amounts of money into the political process to help transform an unremarkable pipeline company into a powerhouse energy trader. After lobbying successfully for deregulation of electrical markets in several states, among them California, it began a campaign to deregulate the trading of energy futures.In the early 1990s several companies sought to exempt themselves from the Commodity Exchange Act's requirement that energy traders disclose information about their futures contracts to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the agency responsible for enforcing the act. Just over a week after Bill Clinton had defeated George Bush in the November 7th 1992 election the companies petitioned the CFTC, headed at the time by Wendy Gramm, to remove energy trading futures from it's jurisdiction. Gramm...was also potentially in conflict of interest - her husband, Texas senator Phil Gramm, was leading beneficiary of Enron's political largesse. She nonetheless brought the petition before her commission, which in January 1993 decided, by a vote of 2 to 1, in favor of Enron and the other petitioners... It "sets a dangerous precedent," Sheila Blair, the lone dissenter on the commission, said of the decision at the time. " It was the most irresponsible decision I have come across," said congressman Glen English, an eighteen-year veteran of the House and chair of the House subcommittee that governed Gramm's commission. Six days after she handed down her decision, on the day Bill Clinton took office Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Five weeks later, she was appointed to Enron's board of directors.
This sort of thing goes on all the time. Did you follow all of that? 'cause I had to read it twice. Combine that with the fact that deregulation was well marketed. So how do we, as Americans, stop this sort of thing? this is complicated stuff.