Congress
The U.S. court system historically leads the way when it comes to transparency in government. The Constitution established the right to a jury trial and with it came the longstanding belief that perhaps no part of government deserves more public scrutiny than the courts.
In the U.S., only one court operates in almost total secrecy — no access to its records, deliberations or rulings.
Here we go again. There’s no reason to have faith in the fix, no matter its final form. Career members in Congress created this financial crisis and will surely make a mess of the solution. It’s hardly reassuring that the members of Congress that created this predicament are involved in its solution.
Congress is indulging in its usual posturing by holding innumerable hearings investigating why the price of gas is so high. Every member of Congress knows or should know that the Enron loophole, passed 7 years ago, is the primary cause of this energy catastrophe. After years of successful, tight governmental control over speculators, Enron’s large campaign contributions to members of Congress resulted in the loosening of this oversight. The Enron loophole allows unregulated speculators to manipulate oil so that prices are estimated to be $60- $80 higher per barrel than they should be.
Enabler is the terminology for anyone, wives, families, or friends, who empower addicts and abusive spouses to act irresponsibly. The United States government is the biggest enabler in the world. It bailed out: the Continental Bank in 1964, the Savings & Loan Industry in 1989, and the Long Term Capital Management Hedge Fund in 1998. Recently, the Federal Reserve, under political pressure, bailed out Bear Stearns. (See the op-ed in the April 11th Wall Street Journal, “Our Financial Bailout Culture,” by Ethan Penner.)
Excerpted from DemocracyConservator.org .
In the 1780s, Alexander Tyler, a University of Edinburgh professor, stated that democracy was a transitory form of government - “[[Democracy]] can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.” (bold and italics added)
