DeRegulation? Just Hand Over Your Money and Nobody Gets Hurt

On the outskirts of D.C., Georgetown hosted a company of your corporate overlords yesterday, there for the occasion of attempted feast on the corpse of public oversight. Yes, you were there. You are the enemy in the view of much of the profit-directed financial realm.

Refreshingly, there is an element of the very, very wealthy who look upon the public more as a partner than an enemy, and they were represented as well, in the following by Warren Buffett.

For his part, the Oracle of Omaha (and in full disclosure, a Washington Post Co. board member) said business leaders brought government scrutiny on themselves after numerous scandals shook investor confidence. During calls to loosen rules on companies and accounting firms, Buffett pointed out that corporate profits have never been higher as a percentage of gross domestic product. "That cannot be regarded as a broken capitalistic system," he said at the Capital Markets Competitiveness Conference.

Earlier, inside the grand Georgetown University meeting hall, surrounded by rich red and blue stained-glass walls and Catholic imagery of sacrifice, Paulson opened the program with a call for "more rigorous cost-benefit analysis of new regulation."[emphasis added]

The corporate effort to throw off pesky regulations comes at a hard time for the financial community. Risky lenders are folding all around us. Rampant back-dating of stocks has been uncovered throughout the past year. Boards are losing auditors who sanctioned these little profit scams and members of the guilty boards are resigning in droves.

For those who haven't been privy to these back-dating deals, a stock can be deemed purchased by a board member at a date when it was less expensive than it is in the present - and when he gets it that stock can be worth much more than the purchase price. Voila, instant bucks!

Of course, while it was going on it was not regarded as theft, but as an accounting sleight-of-hand without a downside. It was an award given to the diligent and burdened board member - a corporate executive perk. The fact that the shareholder/investor was receiving less profit than he/she would have if the purchase were made at the existing price evidently did not enter into accounting minds.

We can be glad that this confab is happening with minds like Barney Frank, Robert Byrd and Frank Obey overseeing its recommendations. That is a great improvement over the prospect of a Ted Stevens, Pete Domenici, and Sam Brownback handling followup. When public interests are regarded as the enemy, regulations become nothing but hindrance on the capitalist benefactors. In Democratic hands, (yes Democratic, they're fighting for us) these proposals are viewed as threatening to financial wellbeing for all of us.

I like the term 'shareholder interests'. If that had been the orientation at, say, General Motors, would they now be in a hole because their production has been directed toward big guzzling vehicles that are now the proverbial 'drug on the market'? Would their financial department have gone into sub-prime lending at a time when savings were dipping into negative territory? If that had been the orientation at, say, Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. of San Diego , one of the strongest sub-prime lenders, would it now be admitting it could not meet Wall Street profitability standards?

With the backdrop of tumbling prices on Wall Street, our representatives being presented this shiney bouquet of proposed regulation busters will not have a hard time just saying No. GOPoisons sometimes, happily, provide their own antidote.