Regulations

What happens in a sporting event if they eliminate the rules and regulations and remove the referees? What would happen in your hometown if they retired all the cops and erased the laws? If you look up regulations in the dictionary you will find the definition - laws. As much as we would like to think that a democracy means the people have a right to govern themselves, it is obvious that without regulations we experience chaos. No one would debate that fact. What happened to our country's regulations that were originally implemented to protect us? The first one I recall was during the Reagan administration. My boss at the time owned seven radio stations - the limit. Why? A simple monopoly law so some rich guy couldn't buy up all the communication media and control what we all see and hear. Reagan ditched that regulation. Without beating dead horses and listing all the following deregulations, we are now experiencing the ultimate results. Even Alan Greenspan, probably the smartest financier we had in government admitted that he erred in deregulating. Lots of very clever business people recognized the holes caused by the deregulations and look advantage. Bernie Maddoff, Ken Ley (Enron) and Countrywide Mortgage to name a few. "Lead us not into temptation." Many of us quote that line many times for good reason. Too many people were tempted and took advantage. Our elected officials who supposedly protect us, either weren't paying attention or were also tempted. Warren Buffet, who I highly respect, reminds that we have survived world wars, a major depression and 9/11. Our foundation is too strong to allow the greed of a few (too many because of deregulations) ruin our great society. He sees us rebounding soon (not tomorrow). Hopefully the government will pass some regulations that keep the bad guys from being tempted. Meanwhile, as I have said many times, we are blessed to be involved to the world's greatest industry that revolves around food, clothing and shelter - something everyone needs. The stock market has definitely bottomed out so I guess that's a good sign of the coming attractions. P.S. - Countrywide Mortgage made billions by saturating T.V. with advertising. Recession or not, that exercise still works and always will. I don't care how big and famous you are, if you stop getting your name in front of your market, they will soon forget. Roland Hopkins is the founder of the New York Real Estate Journal, Norwell, Mass.