This whole Economic/Wall Street/Crisis thing

So I've seen a few opinions (summarized relatively well here and here) But the best actual discussion of the problems and what might be needed to fix them was by a gentleman by the name of Joeseph Stiglitz who had some pretty solid experience.  Anyway, so he was saying that actually the SEC wasn't lacking in regulatory power in most cases but, and this is the important part, when a regulator doesn't believe in regulation, it doesn't matter how much or what powers they do have, because they will not elect to use those powers.

Hmmm... Seems a little like some of the issues related to that recent little report about those folks who were supposed to be making sure the Oil Companies were paying their royalties, but were too coke'd out and sexed up to be particularly concerned about doing their job.

Yes, I'm editorializing and conflating moral "lapses" with economic world views. But I actually do think that there is a case to be made here about a bureaucratic (or political?) culture that is not too concerned with appointing people to positions where they actually believe in executing their job as described.

A certain "John Bolton and his Wacky UN Adventures" comes to mind as well.

Competence is a totally separate issue.

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Going to the ends of the earth.