“Why simply enacting more government regulation doesn’t fix the political-big business corruption problem”, part 4,654,278.

Months before MF Global teetered on the brink, federal regulators were seeking to rein in the types of risky trades that contributed to the firm’s collapse. But they faced opposition from an influential opponent: Jon S. Corzine, the head of the then little-known brokerage firm.

As a former United States senator and a former governor of New Jersey, as well as the leader ofGoldman Sachs in the 1990s, Mr. Corzine carried significant weight in the worlds of Washington and Wall Street. While other financial firms employed teams of lobbyists to fight the new regulation, MF Global’s chief executive in meetings over the last year personally pressed regulators to halt their plans.

Corzine is a major Democratic fundraiser, too, having raised more than $500,000 for the 2012 Obama campaign since this past April alone. He used his leverage within the party to keep the regulators at bay.

Mr. Corzine’s efforts culminated on July 20, as the agency was preparing for a vote on the proposal. That day, MF Global executives were on four different calls with the agency’s staff. Mr. Corzine himself was on two of those calls.

One of the calls was with Mr. Gensler. Both men are active Democrats, and served on financial panels together recently.

Shortly after the calls, Mr. Gensler, aware that he lacked the support to push the vote through, decided to delay the proposal indefinitely. He did so at the urging of Republican commissioners, according to people familiar with the matter.

Government regulations do little unless you separate politicians from big business.

And I don’t mean “ban money from politics”, which also does nothing because lobbyists and politicians will just find a shadier, less transparent way to trade favors. They’ll trade envelopes at a restaurant rather than accepting contributions and publishing those records for all to see.

I mean we need to stop giving politicians and bureaucrats so much power that they can call off investigations or exempt certain preferred companies from mandates. When a legislator control what is bought and sold, the very first thing to be bought and sold is a legislator. And the same goes for bureaucrats. Always remember as much.