The Rule Of Law Is AWOL

Jeff Goodell: You write a lot about the failure of political leadership. In particular, you go after President Obama for not appointing tough regulators to oversee Wall Street.
James Howard Kunsler: Obama has turned out to be fairly clueless. He seems like a decent chap (and by the way, I voted for him). I think that Obama’s failure to reestablish the rule of law in money matters is the most damaging thing that he’s done – and perhaps the most damaging thing that has happened in American politics in my lifetime. Because once the rule of law is absent in money matters, then anything really goes in politics. Any untruth is admissible. Any distortion of reality is OK. It is a profoundly dangerous place for a culture to go. And there is no sign, as we enter the election of 2012, that he has any plans to rectify that. We’re in a situation now where the rule of law is simply AWOL in American economic matters.