Harvey Pitt wasn't the only predator that Bush and his cronies have nominated to rend farm-animal flesh from bone. When the Bush administration nominated to the Commodities Future Trading Commission two individuals who had been responsible for drafting the regulations that let Enron do whatever it wanted with energy derivatives, those who were paying attention could only shake their heads in amazement. What could be more brazen? Here you had one of the biggest corporate scandals of all time, a casebook in how to buy political influence and rig the system in your favor, and the riggers got rewarded with more influence and power, even as Enron's bust helped precipitate a crisis of investor faith that continues to plague the economy.

But Harvey Pitt was by far the most visible, and he gave critics of Bush's economic policies a handy whipping boy. With him off the scene, and control of both the Senate and the House in Republican hands, there is now nothing to stop the Bush administration from continuing to pursue policies of deregulation that are bound to set up the American economy for even bigger disasters in the future.

This is not to argue that deregulation is, per se, wrong, or that government intervention is the best way to run an economy. Markets can be pretty smart, and government officials can be pretty dumb. But one of the things well-organized markets, and governments, are supposed to do is correct themselves when they go overboard in the wrong direction. There should be a dynamic tension between government regulators and the market. When too much bureaucracy and too much micro-managing is stifling a market, you loosen up. But when things get out of control, you tighten up the rules. When Black Tuesday arrives and sets off a Great Depression, you pass a bunch of laws establishing new boundaries on what kind of behavior is permissible.

The system is currently broken. Corporations run amok, and instead of tightening up the rules, the powers that be are continuing, criminally, with business as usual. Instead of cleaning house, the current administration is appointing and promoting the very people who trashed the house in the first place.

And to this, the voters say, Right On! There will be no more gridlock in Washington. The brakes are off, and the runaway train is picking up speed.

We may not see the next crash for a while, especially with the big fat kiss that Greenspan and company just gave Bush. Low interest rates will goose the economy forward for a while. But for how long? As any parent of toddlers knows, once kids start roughhousing, they keep horsin' around and horsin' around until someone gets hurt. Then the grown-ups step in, restore order, and maybe make some new rules -- like, no tackle football in the living room.

This time around, the grown-ups surveyed the wreckage, smiled, and said "Carry on!"

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