It is years of governmental indifference fueled by the demands of special interests—not government intervention—that have led to the current economic and health and safety crises...Had the government intervened earlier in the housing bubble, and established enforceable rules to hold companies on Wall Street accountable when they bought and securitised questionable loans, we would be better off. Instead, it turns out that we replaced firewalls with flashpoints and accelerants, making things worse. Meanwhile, despite the turmoil in the US economy, a large contingent of K St lawyers is being paid handsomely to keep the government’s hands off unregulated hedge funds. The moral hazard of allowing largely unregulated financial firms to become too big to fail is one that the government must respond to.