Shocked, Shocked

It was reported that Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chairman, was amazed that major American banks failed to police their business practices and so helped to speed the sub prime mortgage recession, a weak misnomer I doubt will last the test of time. No doubt the honorable Mr. Greenspan was also surprised that it took decades, even generations, before leading US corporations began to clean up their acts regarding pollution of the environment. They did so only because public opinion would no longer permit them to deny the facts on the damage they had done, hidden, belittled and finally admitted. Even so they fought like tigers with stockholder money to reduce their alleged deadly responsibility. Does it come as much of a surprise to learn that Americans are not alone in this overall failure of governance and regulation? 'Fraid not. We're learning in Japan that when all the radioactive dust settles it will be discovered that costly reactor repairs were sacrificed to profit or expediency. The abundant dollars for the promotion of new construction, presented by the ubiquitous lobbyists, of course, trumped the cautionary calls for prudence and extra safety measures. The latter cut into profits, don't they? No one can even guess today at the cost of Japan's nuclear reactor problems. Indeed, it may take years to find out. I wonder if we Americans will ever discover how much the Republican Party's perpetual and ongoing efforts to relieve Big Business of any responsibility except to maximize shareholder profits has cost the nation. Tea Partyers don't care and the Republican leadership is doing everything possible to undue the small start made by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, to say nothing of Elizabeth Warren's efforts to give consumers some relief from the predatory practices of the credit card companies. They have placed the responsibility for the whole mess on Big Government that has undermined business confidence. This line of attack is familiar to people who have watched Republican strategists go after John Kerry's medals and Max Cleland's patriotism. It's called turn the truth upside down by telling the biggest lies you can think up. In the question today, if there was insufficient regulation to prevent a financial meltdown in the US and a real nuclear one in Japan, spread the word that regulation is the real enemy and get some Texas zillionaire to produce some witnesses (what's Joe The Plumber doing theses days?) to support the claim. Democracy is a wild ride, that's for sure. I'll be the one shocked, however, if the truth doesn't win out in the end.