The Economic Crisis - Public vs. Private Interests Once Again

[T]he way out [of the economic crisis] lies not just through technical fixes or pumping public money into failing banks and insurance companies. It means reasserting our rights as citizens to regulate the market. It means insisting we will not support the new 'socialism of risk' unless we also share in the profits (that's another way to reduce taxes!)

In short, it means consumers must become citizens again, reclaiming their democratic right to fiscal transparency, political oversight and market regulation. It means the public sector must come back not just in the default mode when the private sector fails, but actively and constructively so that the public weal takes precedence over private interests in good times as well. [emphasis added]

Such an arrangement has a name: democracy. The crisis will have been worth it if we finally learn this lesson.

Say "government ethics" and you usually get the response "that's an oxymoron." But it's amazing how much in life comes down to private vs. public interests. The government ethics framework can't handle many of these issues, but in fact its central element of private vs. public interests is central to most of them.