Power, power-lust and where the real power lies [updated]

There are people around who think that real political power lies not with governments, but with corporates and rich businessmen.

Think again.

When a Warren Buffett declines an “invitation” to come to Washington to “share his thoughts on a variety of financial matters,” a minor, mid-level bureaucrat can demonstrate to the third richest man in the world and head of the powerhouse Berkshire Hathaway corporation who’s really the boss in that relationship. A click of the fingers, the issuance of a subpoena, and a piece of paper beginning with the words “YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED” is thereby delivered to his door by the police.

Turns out the gun really does trump the dollar, at least when it comes to making threats.

The latest local example is Simon Power-Lust’s peremptory ministerial decision to invade the businesses of the South Island’s richest man, Allan Hubbard, and his wife—and to place they themselves under “statutory management.”  As Mark Hubbard (no relation) explains,

Allan Hubbard's company Aorangi, and seven underlying charitable trusts, would not have needed a prospectus … but have regardless become the subject of a probe by the Serious Fraud Office, and they, along with Allan and his wife, are now under statutory management by the Nanny State. Aorangi never solicited for funds from the public, it was simply Hubbard's business associates and friends who had traveled with him over the last thirty years, most of whom he has made rich men. Unfortunately, it seems to have allowed a snake in, who has turned on him for who knows what personal vendetta, or trying to make up for losses he/she was not prepared to stand (after the event).
   “As Aorangi did not need a prospectus, these were investment transactions between consenting adults: the government had no right to be involved here: none.
    “This is an historic day. Not because we drew 1-1 with Italy, but for the first time we have seen that a politician, and a bunch of no-hoper parasite bureaucrats can decide to take, to all extents and purposes, your life according to their whim. One second he’s the richest man in the South Island, the next (due to the ruthless intrusion of the State), because all of his private bank accounts are frozen, he can't even buy a pie at the local dairy.”

So where does the real power lie?

UPDATE: "Oh, but the finance industry couldn't be unregulated!" It isn't.

    "Financial services [in the States] have long been subject to detailed regulation by multiple agencies. In his book on the financial crisis, Jimmy Stewart is Dead, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff counts over 115 regulatory agencies for financial services. If more hands in the pot helped, financial services would be in fine shape. Few believe such is the case."

We don't have all the regulatory agencies here in EnZed, but  we do have all the regulations.