Protect the public from free market

July 20, 2008

The Sun's editorial "A loss of trust" (July 15) rightly criticizes banking and investment company executives for their "freewheeling business practices in recent years" and notes that the "real-estate bust" is a "painful lesson about the importance of ethical behavior in a free market economy."

I certainly agree that ethical behavior in the marketplace would be nice. But history tells us that it isn't going to happen.

Whether it's the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s, the savings and loan disaster in the 1980s, the collapse of Enron or the present mortgage meltdown, our history is replete with examples that show that trusting the elites that dominate the marketplace is not in the best interest of the American people.

While far from perfect, government regulation is much better than hoping for ethical behavior in the marketplace.

Why does it seem that whenever one of our great business and financial crises occur, we discover that the government agency that is supposed to regulate our corporate and financial institutions has been cut back so drastically that it can't do its job?

We need to connect the dots.

We need a government that is responsible to the people and is willing to provide regulatory agencies with the funding, staff, and expertise needed to regulate the marketplace. We need better oversight of those agencies.

We need leaders whose spines don't turn to jelly when confronted by the rhetoric about the sanctity of the free market and the evils of regulation.

Stan Markowitz

Baltimore

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