IRVINE, CA--The steep decline in the stock market is being fueled by investors' realization that increasing government constraints on corporate America will harm business and the economy--not help them, said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
      "Instead of launching a witch-hunt against CEOs and rushing to give the government wider powers over business, we should get rid of the complex and contradictory regulations that encourage bad accounting and prevent shareholders from acting in their own interest."
      "The common explanation that 'greed' is to blame makes no sense--the abuses in companies like Enron and WorldCom were not exercises in self-interest, but in self-destruction.
      "In an unfettered free market the desire for profit is satisfied by honest, long-range, rational behavior: by innovating, by hiring the best employees, by selling quality products and by providing accurate information to the owners of the corporation-the shareholders. As for short-range managers, the markets will not tolerate them. As for the real swindlers, existing laws against force and fraud are sufficient to protect us."
      "If our politicians are indeed concerned about the stock market," said Dr. Brook, "let them demonstrate it by eliminating, not adding, regulations and making the market truly free."

ARI executive director Yaron Brook is available for interviews on this topic.