In 1914, progressive corporate lawyer Louis Dembitz Brandeis (later one of our finest Supreme Court Justices) wrote a book about investment banking, entitled Other Peoples' Money. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I reckon.

Today, from St. Augustine to Wall Street, con artists take other peoples' money and blow it, ripping off investors. Since 1981, Reaganomics' deregulatory mania has allowed conmen to pollute, monopolize, discriminate and exploit us all, whether workers or investors. Enough.

See the list (below) of local residents and others owed money by LYDIA CLADEK, INC., which is reportedly under FBI investigation.

The next time some uninformed Republican or Libertarian tells you that government regulation is bad, remind them about the LYDIA CLADEK, INC. victims, or the Deepwater Horizon spill, or the dead coal miners in West Virginia.

Desuetude (nonenforcement) of environmental laws and of worker, consumer and investor protection laws is wrong.

If we had functioning federal government enforcers at SEC, the LYDIA CLADEK, INC. investors would not be crying bitter tears, worried about the retirements they thought they'd secured.

Social Darwinists, you are wrong. As the late Robert F. Kennedy said, "Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary or there are people in distress who cannot help themselves."

What do you reckon?