My! It looked like this was going to be a discussion of Enron, It seems to have degenerated into the usual debate about whether Liberals or Conservatives are Better.

Doug, the SEC has a statutory mandate to regulate audiging firms like Arthur Andersen. So failures by auditing firms occur because of inadequate regulation by the SEC. And the President's recent appointee, Mr. Pitt, is grimly determined that inadequate regulation is here to stay.

Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page agrees with me on that one. And it is a British understatement to say the WSJ is "conservative" - it is so ultra-right wing that on the few times in the past it seemed to agree with me, I was impelled seriously to reconsider my ideas.

It appears that Enron and Arthur Andersen were like joined at the hip. Arthur Andersen provided not only auditing, but also tax-accounting and "consultant" services to Enron, so that it was Enron's largest supplier. Auditors occupied offices at Enron, dressed like Enron employees and were believed to be Enron employees. Enron hired officers from among the Arthur Andersen auditors, and Arthur Anderson, in turn, recruited senior people from Enron.

Any fool can plainly see that that kind of wet-dog situation inevitably creates fraud. And the former head of the SEC tried to prohibit conflicts of interest, and senior congresspeople overwhelmed him with threats of legislation to clip the SEC's wings. Thirty Sentators forcefully objected to any attempt to clean up the auditing profession, which is not two surprising, because at least three of the Big Five accounting firms regularly outdid Enron in their campaign contributions.

Most of the money goes to Republicans, and it appears that they did most of the intervening. Nonetheless, it was truly a "bipartisan" effort. Aside from Phil Gramm of Texas, whose wife at Enron is now up to her ears in the scandal, the biggest miscreant seems to have been Senator Joe Lieberman of Conntecticut. I was never sure about Lieberman, who seemed a bit sanctimonious. Now I'm sure. He is the sanctimonious sleaze-bag of the year.

Finally, the next time I hear about privatizing Social Security, so everyone has to go on the stock market and be victimized by those crooks . . . .