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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
May 28, 2006 In "Silver Blaze," one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, the following exchange takes place: Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident." I think of that when I hear the usual suspects chant of greed and corruption in big business. Big oil companies "gouging" at the gas pumps. Evil--EEEEVVVILLL, I SAY!--corporations conspiring behind the scenes to cheat the little guy. Why one would think that American businesses are as corrupt as, let's say, the Democratic Party. Bullies on the playground extorting lunch money from the weak. Well, I have lived in Louisiana and seen the corruption of Democratic politics in action. I've been on a playground or two many long years ago and there were the occasional bullies. And, yes, we have had an occasional, a very occasional, major scandal in the business world. The amazing thing, however, is the curious incident of the prosecutorial hounds in the night-time. That is, they haven't barked all that doggone much! The government scrutinizes oil companies on an almost continuous basis and yet has found no evidence for price gouging. Some people think that a price increase means they are being gouged. But au contraire, the price increase means that the oil companies had to pay more to buy and manufacture the oil products. The percent of profit has remained quite stable despite all the price changes. Oil supply instability, government prevention of finding and drilling for new supplies, government taxes, environmental regulations--there are many causes of high gasoline prices, mostly related to governmental meddling, but oil company gouging isn't one of them. Since the Enron and Worldcom scandals (just where did Terry McAuliffe get his stock-picking advice? Insider information, wasn't it?) the government has been pocking its nose into thousands of business deals all over the nation. And the dog hasn't barked. They haven't turned up evidence much beyond since Worldcom. Wonder why poor Martha Stewart went to jail for a few thousand and Terry McAuliffe got away with 10 million or more? Was Martha a Republican? I don't know, but there's something fishy there. After a scandal or two, the government (Sarbanes and Oxley) proposed a bill and made it illegal to lie, cheat, and steal in the business world. It apparently escaped their notice that it was illegal before that. Have you ever stopped to think how many laws passed since 1875 have merely repeated the illegalities of old laws that people were ignoring? Why didn't they just start enforcing the old laws rather than create new ones outlawing the same things? Well, sure, it is to make work for themselves and to make the people, you and me, think that they are doing something useful. It's sort of like the illegal alien situation. Let's all yell out together: IT'S ALREADY ILLEGAL TO SNEAK OVER THE BORDER!!! But they'll pass some new laws making it even more illegaller, and then claim they've done something useful and hope we'll forget about it. It's already illegal to hire illegal aliens. They'll pass a law making it illegaler and hope we forget about it. It's already illegal to falsify Social Security cards. (By the way, when the 2001 illegal aliens using the same Social Security number file for their SoshSec checks a few years down the road, how will the government sort that out?) But they'll pass a law making it illegaler and hope we forget about it. Meanwhile, to distract us, the Democrats will continue to whip themselves into a lather about corporate corruption--but remember, the dog didn't bark in the night. There just wasn't that much corporate criminality out there. As the WSJ recently said, "Every economic boom produces scoundrels who are exposed when the tide recedes, but the vast majority of American capitalists are honest and honorable." http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008405 ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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