Today the New York Times printed an op-ed article with the headline The End of the Financial World as We Know It.

It tells the story of how a gentleman by the name of Harry Markopolos, a savvy expert on the workings of the stock market and hedge funds, an investor himself, and having nothing to gain except perhaps an unwanted label, figured out that the now infamous Bernard Madoff, ex head of NASDAQ, could not possibly claim such consistently high returns for his clients.  The promised profits have revealed themselves to be losses, perhaps as high as fifty billion dollars. But too many people were making money, and nobody seemed interested in helping to bring the good times to an end. Meanwhile, what had been preoccupying the country’s legislators in Washington, where regulatory solutions lie, appears to be how best to vote themselves a raise.

It’s much like the U.S. Civil Justice system, which is what this site attempts to probe, where the public can’t afford to hire a lawyer.  Conflicts of Interest are similarly embedded in a system where supposedly neutral judges are drawn from the ranks of highly biased and profit-motivated lawyers. Again, the ol’ boys network.  It’s time a sea change took place there too. Judges are judges and lawyers are lawyers, they have different mind-sets, and they should be kept apart and trained differently from the very beginning of their careers. Judicial regulation is lacking there too. And again, the Chief Justice in Washington’s preoccupation appears to be how best to vote raises for judges.