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Corporate Control
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High-profile corporate scandals and tales of corporations prioritizing their profit over consumer protections continue to impact Americans on a daily basis, with CEOs’ greed and fraudulent business practices widespread throughout the economy. Most are the result of lax regulation of key industries, allowing corporations too much control over Americans’ lives with no protection provided to consumers. These scandals have ranged from Enron robbing billions of dollars from California electricity consumers, to Wall Street investment firms stealing billions of dollars from average investors, to Halliburton’s and Bechtel’s Iraq subsidiaries stealing billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers, to accounting scandals at WorldCom and Tyco, and less dramatic-but no less hurtful-actions of companies prioritizing their own self-interest at the expense of consumers. In this era of deregulation, too many corporations have proven to the American people that they simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Additionally, the close connection, including the "revolving door" and other conflicts of interest between industry and government, only weakens government oversight. Consumers deserve to be protected by strong, sensible regulations in order to safeguard the food we eat, the water we drink, and the energy we use.
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