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Wall Street’s Mascots Molly Ivins september 2002 Remember the old saying about how to get the mule’s attention? First you hit it upside the head with a heavy plank, then you gently say, “Hey, mule.” The American people have just been hit upside the head with a plank: $7 trillion of what people thought they were worth disappeared in a giant “earnings restatement.” And now it is time to gently suggest what can be done to Wx this. Or maybe not so gently, since failure to Wx it is likely to cost so much that $7 trillion will look like chump change. Our political system is so broke it took seven years to react to the savings and loan crisis, which was caused by the political system in the Wrst place. That cost us only $500 billion. If they take seven years to stop this hemorrhage , we’ll be totally sunk. Step Numero Uno: public campaign Wnancing. This mess is not just about corporate greed; it is just as much about political corruption. Perhaps the least edifying sight so far is that of politicians pointing their Wngers at the CEOnistas and clucking over their greed. First and funniest was President Junior, whose entire business career was this very same corporate scandal writ small. The man is the mascot of crony capitalism. Listening to his lecture to Wall Street about their need for moral rearmament and better business ethics was Wrst-rate entertainment. There are basically only two ways to control capitalism: One is by government regulation , and the other is through the courts. Wave after wave of “tort reform” made corporations increasingly sue-proof. The much maligned trial lawyers and their socalled frivolous lawsuits actually functioned like the sharks they are so often compared to. If a corporation stuck a hand outside the law, a shark would swim by and bite it o¤, as it were, by suing for lots of money, a lovely incentive for decorous corporate behavior. But the politicians have been killing o¤ the sharks. All of this is not the fault of corporate greedheads; it is the fault of a corrupted political system. It is a consequence of legalized bribery. It is about campaign Wnance. That is the “without which” nothing will come out of this mess. 326 part 16 democratizing democracy ...

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