Consumers are too stupid to make good choices

[Hammerskjold]

Arther Anderson went belly up due to the accounting fraud, and most of the top executives (Skilling, Fastow, Lay) were convicted and are serving time (except Lay because he died). It seems the legal system worked.

The system 'worked' in my opinion and memory, because of the scale and the media scrutiny involved. IIRC, there was shenanigans before it, but Enron sparked off an anger among people at that time. Even the government is smart enough to know if the public thinks Fastow and co. is let off with a slap on the wrist, the anger at Enron can turn to them instead.

I'm not sure you can have the government insure to remove all the risks of carnage to pensions, stock losses, and people temporarily unemployed. Risk is an inherent part of the reward that a capitalist system provides, to owners, investors, and even workers. There is always the risks that you are being lied to by an unscrupulous person, even when to do so is fraud and against the law. We mostly get justice, but seldom satisfaction.

Not what I'm talking about. I never said anything about eliminating all risks. There's risks that comes with the territory, and then there's stupid risk like 'profit at all costs' supergreed that to me, undermines confidence in the free-market capitalist system. In my opinion that kind of shenanigans can do far more damage to that system than any of the eeyviil socialist schemes.

To be clear, I'm not saying this because I'm some sort of Elliot Ness of corporate justice. I am saying this because whenever I see these types of scandal, IMO they siderail wealth creation by bringing too much instability and distrust.