In his excellent article “Bad Regulation Drives Out Good” Mr. Richman makes the point that government regulation doesn't work very well. One thing that he doesn't mention is how Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is actually advocating secret government.

While describing regulatory changes on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” the senator states:

There will be a strong, quiet, hopefully more unified federal regulator. And he's gonna be tough–or she. But they're gonna be quiet. So like when Bear Stearns began to run into trouble, they're gonna call the heads of Bear Stearns in and say, “All right fellas, you're getting rid of those two hedge funds; you're gonna raise more capital even if means you have lower profitability. We're not gonna tell anyone you're doing this, but you do it or we're gonna take sanctions against you.”

Why does Schumer think we need “quiet” regulators that aren't “gonna tell anyone you're doing this”? Since when is government supposed to operate in the shadows out of public view? This is nothing short of advocating an unaccountable, tyrannical, and corrupt government. Have we really sunk so low that he thinks he can get away with this?

Believe it or not, it gets worse. The senator goes on to say, “You need a tough, strong regulator, unified—no holes in the system— who sees the problem ahead of time, so they have complete transparency, they know exactly what's going on”. In Schumer's dream world the government gets to know everything that private companies are doing, “no holes in the system “, while the same “tough, strong regulator, unified” gets to operate in secret! Transparency will only apply to the private sector, not the government.

The real reason for regulation is now nakedly revealed. It's not about protecting the people, it's about controlling them. As Ayn Rand wrote, “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”

We can't let this nightmare come to pass.