There's a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting going on with the media right now thanks to the Best Picture Oscar win by Spotlight and the newly released Panama Papers which is uncovering a world of malfeasance in organized religion, business and among the wealthy.
This, of course, has many in the industry giddy that all of their favorite targets are getting skewered. The reactions? Fairly predictable.
Business will always need watchdogging. Chris Tomlinson, HoustonChronicle.com($$$)
The Chron's Austin-based "regulatory columnist" (hint: he doesn't write about business but, incessantly, about how much more regulation it needs) is fixated on the Panama Papers as a reason why more regulation of American business is needed.
In Tomlinson's world events like those (fictionally) depicted in Spotlight and what we're reading in the Panama Papers is proof-positive that only an all-powerful, all-seeing government can protect us from the corrupting power of capitalism and people actually gaining wealth and attempting to use it.
Tomlinson doesn't view the world in terms of haves and have nots, he sees our planet as those who can cheat, and those who cannot. He sees the government as being incapable of cheating, or (even worse) acting from political motivations, and calls for "watchdog" groups like the IRS and SEC to provide more oversight and enact tighter rules to prevent cheating.
What Mr. Tomlinson refuses to acknowledge is that many of the bad actors, especially in the Panama issue, are the very same protectors of the people that he is asking be given more power. In short, Mr. Tomlinson, and (to be fair) many others in the media, want to let the political foxes guard the chickens in the economy with little to no oversight.
This is because media members of the same stripe as Mr. Tomlinson see the media and governments as playing for the same team. They honestly believe that their supposed mission to "conflict the powerful" doesn't include government, only private citizens who are successful. It's the epitome of those who say "those who can't, criticize." Any accumulation of wealth is viewed, in the eyes of some media and members of the bureaucracy as proof of malfeasance absent any other evidence.
You make money, and you are cheating. Period. If you're not the government, you're trying to cheat the government and should be punished. (Cheating the government being viewed as the worst crime in the world.) There is no admission that the IRS, and other government groups also engage in nefarious tactics as well in order to squeeze money out of individuals, that the regulatory state operates with virtual impunity in the current environment, often requiring deep pockets and years in court for the accused to right wrongs.
Then there's the problem that it's not the media who were the heroes in the Panama Papers case to begin with. It was hackers. People who (illegally mind you) thwarted the fire-wall of the Panamanian lawfirm and absconded with Millions of documents which they then turned over to the media, who pretty much performed a secretarial function at that point creating a neat, Power-Point slide show to illustrate how much wrong was going on.
Again, in many cases (most?) what was going on were government officials, those in charge of the regulatory states in their respective countries in many cases, who were subverting the very laws they swore to uphold. THEY were stealing from the government but will not be charged with crimes as would a non-ruling class member. THEY are not being ran through the mud by Tomlinson in the same manner that he's disparaging American business.
American Business, it should be noted, that is not really implicated in this mess.
Pro-big government activists like Tomlinson, who have been given a bullhorn with which to promote the regulatory state, don't let things like facts get in the way. He sees that Panama is, in his view, "lightly regulated" and uses that to justify his call for ever-tighter, burdensome regulation that has, in part, led us to the mess we're in today.
When you hear politicians speak about the "non-level" playing field what they're really referring to is a regulatory structure that's been designed by wealthy donors to their benefit, and to the detriment of everyone else. This, not a low minimum wage, has aided and abetted income inequality and it's frozen social-economic mobility in a country that used to pride itself on being the best in the world.
If you think that's bunk, look at the correlation between America's diminished social mobility, the income inequality gap and our continued sinking rankings in the economic freedom index. Journalistic bad actors such as Tomlinson are either ignorant of this, or choosing to ignore it to forward their political Statism.
Currently there are thousands of regulatory agencies in all branches of government whose primary mission it to increase dollars coming into the government coffers. You read that right, in most cases their income is a budget item, and shortfalls have to be made up through increased collections. Since the regulated companies don't have revenues then the avenue is, too often, enforcement and compliance. A government clerk, often not a degreed accountant, makes a decision that a company is acting with malfeasance and has the authority, with only cursory supervisory review, to levy Millions of dollars in assessments. If the company does not comply, or has the temerity to appeal, then the matter is remanded to an enforcement division, which immediately levies penalties and interest, much of which may STILL BE DUE should the company prevail. More often than not, prevailing means winning in court, a process which is both timely and expensive and which many companies hope to avoid.
All of what I wrote above ignores the fact that the marching orders provided to the agencies are given by political appointees to management positions who force these so-called "benign" regulators to target unpopular industries more than others. This is not watchdogging as Tomlinson laughably describes it, but confiscating. For the children, of course, so all is (presumably) OK.
Throughout the years the Republican Party has done little to reign in this apparatus. Instead they've fallen victim to rhetoric coming from sycophants such as Tomlinson and pronouncements by demagogues (both within and without) that "Something! Must be done...." every time a bad actor is found. This has led to poor regulation that punishes the honest brokers with increased regulatory compliance costs to prove they are innocent, while the guilty typically continue on without the burden of the regulatory state, who are too busy trying to squeeze blood out of the turnips who are honest (stupid?) enough to try and comply.
Regulation of this type also hurts small businesses, who often lack the manpower and resources needed to successfully defend themselves against charges of malfeasance levied against them by know-nothing, lower-level government employees on a constant basis, often without proof. I was once told by a government clerk "I don't know what it is, but you owe it." after it became clear they had an incorrect number in their financial model which was creating a variance, something her management had told me 'would only take a phone call to fix'. The resulting bill that the government was claiming to be due took three years to fully resolve. It was finally determined that we didn't owe additional royalty, but there was penalty and interest due b/c of "bad reporting with no financial impact." Which we paid because going through the appeals process would cost us way more than just paying up.
I work for a medium-large company, with resources and a dedicated team to represent our interests. How can a small company with only one or two staff handle these types of charges and do their jobs? More importantly, how are they going to operate if the newest civil penalty regulations pass which could make them criminally liable on a personal level for simple accounting errors?
In short, they can't. But the government, and regulatory state supporters like Mr. Tomlinson don't care. All they care about is that the revenue targets are hit, the government works get their bonuses and annualized pay raises, and money continues to flow into the treasury allowing them to wash their hands and have some good feelz that the big, mean corporations aren't getting one over on MY government.
That the poor and middle class suffer because of this, and that the politicians overseeing the system are profiting hand over fist using insider trading and other methods that would put normal citizens in jail, is viewed as just another sacrifice that must be made in order to ensure that Statists like Mr. Tomlinson can sleep well at night knowing that there are not smarter people out there than him making a buck without the government doing all they can to redistribute it to others.
It's a false sense of security, but hey. Mr. Tomlinson's entire column was built on the false argument that malfeasance in other countries builds his case for increased regulation in ours.
I call it a wash.
