I'm slowly bringing some of my old articles over to post here on C99. This is one that I originally published Jun 21, 2013. Now that we are in the midst of FBI vs. Apple wherein the FBI is attempting to compel Apple to become an arm of the surveillance state, some of this seems pretty current in a way.

The US government works closely with thousands of corporations to bring you everything from national security to the drivers of climate change.  The connections between these entities are diverse and often quite opaque making it difficult for citizens to tell who is really in charge.  Is it the corporations with their ultimate responsibility to make a profit for their owners and shareholders, or is it the government with its ultimate responsibility to the electorate that is in charge?  Do the principles of government or business apply to joint decision making processes when government invests in businesses and sits on their boards, or when government agencies have representatives of business sit on task forces and decision making structures?

The economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith wrote, “people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

What happens when the interests of business and government so align, that they are fundamentally, "in the same business?"

I am slowly migrating the content which I created over at the Great Orange Satan and some other websites here to C99.

This article is interesting now because we are coming close to the last budget cycle of the Obama presidency, his last chance to arrange a "Grand Bargain" to ingratiate himself to the 1 percenters that will pay for his Presidential library and line his pockets in his Post-Presidential earning years.