by William A. Collins
Your investments,
On the brink;
Not as safe,
As you might think.
The robber barons of the Roaring '20s finally stumbled off into oblivion with the coming of the Great Depression. It was the New Dealers who then invented the regulatory regimens to prevent such corruption from ever, ever happening again in the stock market and in corporate governance. Bless their hearts!
It all worked fine for a while, but now the barons are back, like the Joker in a Batman sequel. And the chief culprit in their resurgence for once wasn’t even Richard Nixon, Wellspring #1 of so many of America’s evil urges. No, this time it was Ronald Reagan, U.S. Wellspring #2. Mr. Reagan believed people were basically good, that “excessive” regulation was bad, and that unfettered capitalism would maximize world welfare. Or at least that’s what he convinced us to think.< [more]