I admit it. I still talk on my cell phone when I drive, even though this past year Washington State enacted a law making this illegal. I like to think of it as my own little private protest (hey it helps me sleep at night) as I don’t believe they need to regulate when I talk...but maybe I'm wrong.

Recently I have been reading headlines implicating some of the biggest organizations in a HUGE corporate governance scandal. It started with one of the largest IT companies in the country admitting that they “cooked” their books in the tune of 1.5 billion dollars. The fallout from this involves their top executives being placed in jail and their auditors (Price Waterhouse) being investigated. In addition, two other major IT companies have been banned from the World Bank due to unethical business practices.

If you are asking why you haven’t heard about this, it is because it’s happening in India. However doesn’t it sound familiar to the Enron situation and the accounting scandals that came to light afterwards? The later resulting in Sarbanes-Oxley and the all the new regulation requirements it involves.

Everyday I hear more about the economic crisis our own country is facing, to the point where I am almost numb to any new info that comes out. Did Greenspan’s policies of de-regulation lead to our current economic situation? I will leave that debate to people much smarter then me. However it does lead to the question “Do we need to be regulated?” I’m not sure how Adam Smith would react to me saying this but it does seem that regulation serves a purpose. Just look what is happening all over the world, from India to the United States. It feels weird admitting this, it almost feels un-American. What are your thoughts?