Regulatory Capture and Big Government Corruption

There are those, largely on the left, who believe government is benevolent and must be brought to bear to reign in the excesses of the free market. The trouble, just like absolute power big government corrupts everything it touches. Look no further than the cozy relationship between Wall Street mega-firms and DC. The financial services industry is probably the most highly regulated in the country. Regulatory capture has led to a symbiotic relationship where a handful of very large firms routinely commit fraud or violate laws making hundreds of millions in profit while unsuspecting clients get left holding the bag. If caught the perps usually negotiate a fine while the individuals involved skate from any criminal charges. Once in a while the regulators throw the book at some unpreferred firm, usually a smaller company or a foreign institution, but Goldman Sacks will never get punished. There is a two-way flow of people between Wall Street and DC. In the end the mega-firms and the corrupt DC Feds both get rich. Here is one such example with Citigroup and the Feds, where a courageous judge said “no” to the settlement negotiated by the parties, only to be overturned on appeal:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-meet-jed-rakoff-judge-who-exposed-rigged-game

The US government is probably the most corrupt institution in the country. Trump tried to change this and we see what it brought. Any big business that DC gets its tentacles into becomes corrupted. We are seeing this now sadly in healthcare, where government controls the purse strings to such an extent that hospitals are mindlessly following idiotic and dangerous government Covid protocols that are literally killing their clients….patients. This will stop when enough people make it stop. All of this is the very definition of crony capitalism, something leftists and Democrats purport to hate….they don’t.

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