Consumers are too stupid to make good choices

[kandrathe]

People are too stupid? I remember back when Al Gore was preaching global warming *way* before it became a mainstream concern, and Congress shunned him because the ideas he had to fix this "problem" were too costly and required too dramatic of a change, so what did Congress and the Bush administration, Senior and Jr., so about it?

"In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 against ratifying any treaty negotiated at Kyoto that (1) did not also set emissions limits on developing countries; and (2) that “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.” Yet when the Kyoto negotiations faltered, Al Gore as leader of the American delegation agreed to a treaty that did exactly that. President Clinton therefore declined to send the Treaty to the Senate for ratification in the sure knowledge that it would be defeated heavily, damaging the reputation of both him and his Vice-President."

No, I think some things DO need to be regulated not because of stupidity, but because of greed, which seems to fit inline perfectly with the other point made in this thread about Enron.

I'll repeat. Enron was not greed, it was fraud, a lie, total hogwash, and a scam. What they did was always illegal, which is why new laws did not need to be made to convict them. They did inspire the government to require that Corporate officers sign their 10Q's and submit them to the government for scrutiny, adding another oversight department to government.

"Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him." - Voltaire