It’s a mistake if you believe that the government acts or should act in the interests of its citizens.
If however you think the governments purpose is to further the interests of corporations, then it’s the opposite of a mistake.
If however you think the governments purpose is to further the interests of corporations, then it’s the opposite of a mistake.
They may have bigger pockets, but when Goldman steals millions from some company by violating their fiduciary duty... that company suffers. That's money they could use to lower prices, hire more people, etc. It makes it harder for them to compete.
So let's not overstate it. It's the financial industry that benefits from removing it. I doubt non-financial companies are in favor of letting banks take advantage of them.
I disagree here.
I think a government should act in the interests of its citizens, and there are countries where this still occurs.
The argument you are making is whether the US still does this is fair, but they absolutely SHOULD be doing it.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
(Less sarcastically, the Republic transitions pretty quickly from a discussing of "what's a good life" to "how can we structure society (and government) to help people live well?" It's a good book, even if the conclusions are a bit suspect.)
Among the tricks of the trade is for government management to always ensure each year's allotment of money is fully spent. That way, the budget will remain at least the same and probably more the next year. (Too bad for the taxpayers.)
It's #1, by several orders of magnitude. I would still argue that it's not a mistake, but that's because a mistake would mean they didn't intend to help category #2.