Molly Ivins on you fakirs,you know who you are..."...We are being
   stolen blind by crooks pretending to be fundamentalist capitalists.
   Your fundamentalist capitalist is, mais oui (as we often say in
   Lubbock), the one who believes The Free Market Answers All. This is a
   theological position, beyond reach of persuasion by either fact or
   logic--not to mention history, experience, and time. The market
   fundamentalist doesn't understand that when capitalism is not
   regulated, it screws up with monotonous regularity, and reading the
   newspapers lately gives you a sense of how it works.
   Big scandal: Enron and other corporate players bilked California during
   the energy crisis! Do you realize how pathetic that was? A massive,
   hideous rip-off, and all these latter-day Joads in California (many
   with purple hair, rings in their navels, tattoos on their kidneys and
   toy poodles dyed-to-match--you have to allow for California) cried over
   the months of ruthless pillage, "Where the hell is the Federal Energy
   Regulatory Commission? Where's FERC?" Well, FERC was occupied by
   regulators who came from a list supplied by one Ken Lay, chairman of
   Enron.
   Then there's the gross conflict of interest of the stock analysts, who
   were recommending stocks they thought were "dogs" or "a piece of crap"
   so their firms could score investment banking fees from these same
   dogs.
   Or take Dick Cheney's old firm, Halliburton, which, while he was in
   charge, "altered its accounting policies so it could report as revenue
   more than $100 million in disputed costs on big construction projects,"
   The New York Times reported. The company's auditor: Arthur Andersen.
   And who is supposed to be policing all this? An SEC led by Bush's man
   Harvey Pitt, a lawyer for financial institutions who once wrote a law
   review article that advocated shredding..."
   Full piece at...
   [1]http://www.progressive.org/July%202002/ivin0702.html

References

   1. http://www.progressive.org/July 2002/ivin0702.html