A statue Niccolò Machiavelli sitting outside of the Uffizi, in Florence, Italy. Macchiavelli was a philospher, humanist and writer.
Since I started the South Florida Law Blog following the 2008 economic meltdown, I have made no secret of the fact that I am extremely critical of what can best be characterized as “America’s new crony capitalism.”
Crony capitalism occurs where certain industries have gained undue influence in the political process and thus have curried favor unjustly from the government. This undue influence distorts the market in favor of those that can afford favorable treatment (in other words, not you or me), and also creates a system where these industries are permitted to grow unfettered and unregulated, leading to practices such as the “Wall Street Rule” or “Too Big To Fail.”
Typically the type of influence that these corporations are able to obtain falls within the executive and legislative branches of the government. Whether we like it or not our system does allow for a certain amount of lobbying as well as campaign contributions in order to obtain such influence.
But not surprisingly, the ease with how these companies are able to obtain such influence has created a highly uneven playing field between the average tax payer and that of large multi-billion dollar industries, particularly banks.
But despite all of this crony capitalism, under no circumstances did I ever expect to see the banking industry blatantly attempt to try and corrupt the judicial branch which is typically the most neutral of the three branches of government when it comes to political influence and crony capitalism. Yet, in another “Too Big To Fail” twist, the Illinois Bankers Association (the “IBA”) has done just that.
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