This morning on Radio 4 there was a report on the introduction of American style monetary awards being offered to whistle blowers to help ferret out fraud and corruption in the UK.
Given that the US under the Reagan, Clinton (sad but true) and Bush Jr administrations was caught up in a blizzard of deregulation and that oxymoron of the true believers "self-regulation" that resulted in massive fraud and corruption culminating in the sub-prime led global financial collapse it is perhaps interesting to see what the American response was to try and ensure that the whole mess wouldn't be repeated.
Also given that the forces of extremist capitalism will always fight against regulation and government oversight it is understandable that there might be some concerns about the methods generated in the US to combat fraud and corruption.
Still, given that fraud and corruption are part of the fear and greed basis of capitalism, and that monetary awards to motivate people to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing just might work I was disappointed that the discussion focused more on the fact that it was an American idea rather than does it work or not.
It is one of the great failures of ideologues that they see the world in blacks and whites and in this case the interviewer and the "expert" were much more concerned with the "Americanisation" of Britain than with an analysis of the "cash for information" schemes being discussed.
After listening to the program all I could deduce is that I should think that everything out of America is bad, including financial rewards for whistle blowing, without any information to support that assertion.
I am severely disappointed with the BBC.
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