There are any number of things wrong with the system today that encourage either short sightedness or outright fraud on the part of buisnesses.

1. Insufficent penalties for breaking the law. Between the lack of prosecution of white collar crimes, the difficulty of getting a conviction when there is a prosecution and the limited penalties that are applied when convicted, it should come as no surprise that those inclined to break the law do so. This creates a feedback loop the encourages more and more lawbreaking.

2. Mangled legal and tax system. Our legal and tax codes are so complex and convoluted that there is no way to be sure that you are in compliance with them. This gets people used to the idea of breaking the law, which encourages further disrespect for the law.

3. Short sighted stock market. Most investors in the stock market today are planning on making their money though changing stock prices, and have no intention of holding the stock for any length of time. People pick boards and CEO's of companies based on getting the stock price up this quarter, not on building up the companies real strength. This creates all sorts of havok as executives will do anything to increase profits this quarter even if it will obviously damage long term growth.

4. Ignorance of consumers. People buy the most heavily advertised companies without the least consideration for the actual quality of what the company produces or the price / quality ratio.

5. Globalism. The current free trade system is designed so that companies can move manufacturing to poor countries and use practices there that would not be tolerated here. Everything from withholding pay for no reason, forcing them to work with toxic chemicals to outright beatings and murders of union organizers are found in other countries. The current IMF and World Bank help this along by forcing governments to leave buisness alone among other questionable practices.

6. Political Lobbying. The current system of campaign and party financing in this country is basicly a legalized bribery system. One that insures that the majority of congresspeople will be more sympathetic to companies then to citizens. (People not voting helps this along of course.)

7. Monoply markets. A percentage of companies are built around the idea of maximizing profits not by compeating better but by controlling the market. By getting a sufficent level of market share and legal barriers to competition, they insure that people have to buy even if their service is poor. Overall this is a small percentage of companies, but their bad practices tend to ripple out into the market as a whole.

And that is just off the top of my head.

Jay