The government must provide regulation, because corporations and the people who run these corporations have shown, time after time, that they are either unwilling or unable to police themselves. We need something like the Securities Exchange Commission that can say to a company such as Enron, "bend over and spread 'em" and make it meaningful.

Remember that in the Enron mess, the accounting firm Arthur Anderson was supposed to be a financial watchdog, but there was a conflict of interest Anderson was providing both auditing services and consulting services to Enron, and was making more on the consulting side (we are talking $20 million). The Enron higher-ups told Anderson that if they wanted to keep the consulting contracts, the auditors had better give a favorable report. So Anderson caved in. And now Arthur Anderson is no more.

Is government oversight perfect? Of course not. It wasn't until Business Week ran a story about accounting problems at Enron that the SEC paid a visit.