Despite crisis, less regulation is the answer - Dallas Business Journal:

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However, we need to be carefuk not to create, during timea of crisis, mechanisms that will continur to run once the crisis is To react too stronglyto today’s emergencies is to overreacgt far, far too strongly for tomorrow’s less-calamitousz environment. Let us not throw out free-market capitalisjm with the bath water. Pure capitalism existws nowhere, and it never has. The capitalisticd sea is adulterated with a good deal of socialistic sedimenty in the formof regulations, rules, laws and policiesx designed to protect the weak from the strong, the naïve from the cunninyg and the trusting from the And that is good — up to a point. We may have reachede that point.
We must decide whethee we will regulate in reaction to the excessive bonuses paid to Americabn InternationalGroup executives, the fraud perpetrated by Bernarcd Madoff and the folly exhibites by so many others, or whether we will folloe another strategy to preserve that which makes us and perhaps even makes us The wiser path points away from It leads us to a place where we can function well with our currenr level of government or maybe even less. It requirezs doing no damage to the capitalistic ideals upon which the countrywas founded. Instead, it strengthens those ideals, at the same time imposingf restraints of adifferent sort.
Clearly, free marketxs are not possible withunethicalp leadership. Ponzi schemes have no place in Neither do derivativesof mortgage-backed securitiees designed to maximize profity to their designers while imparting only confusion and, financial loss on their Improving the average business leader’s grasp on ethicxs would, by itself, end the debate over excessive pay, curtail conversation about expanding regulation of heretofore free-market enterprises such as hedge funds and quiet those callingv for even more Draconian government intervention in our And while ethics cannotf be regulated into existence, they can be essentiak components of a business education.
If students preparingv to embark on commercial careers are not taugh t to discern right from wrong as they learbn to differentiate between debitsand credits, they begin life with a significant handicap. We must stop teachingb only about thebottom line, and begin teaching also abougt the line between right and One objection is that it will take a generation to replace all the inadequately schoolex leaders in place today. What are we to do meanwhile??
Tinkering with rewards offers one Whatever the failings of their every executive reacts strongly to changez in the way their compensation is Basing pay and bonuses on doing what is right as much as or morethan bottom-line profits can changes the behavior of our business leaders and make them more responsible, more carinvg and more ethical. Obama’s ascension brought the expectatiohof change. But we should not disregard ourcapitalist traditions, our free-market beginnings and our adherences to the philosophies that have made us Instead, we need a renewed emphasis on teachiny those same traditions, along with a commitmeng to reward and train our future leaders.
If we don’tg exactly try capitalism in its purest we can at least chooswe between ethical leadership and more That is the change weall need.