Regulation, Delicious Regulation!

As we mentioned yesterday, we at the Blasphemy Blog are former residents of the city of Boston, and proud of it. Boston is a unique, wonderful American city, with many singular aspects to its character. One of these aspects that we never quite figured out was Dunkin’ Donuts, a beloved local institution whose deep-fried-dough-and-well-sweetened-coffee format was founded and perfected down the road from Boston, in Quincy, Mass.

Don’t get us wrong: we enjoyed a Boston Cream Donut regularly, but it was nothing to write home about, and by all accounts the coffee was terrible; we didn’t see the appeal. When we read in Boston magazine a few years ago that Krispy Kreme was planning to expand into the Boston area, we figured the Dunkin’ Donuts would soon fall away in favor of those delicious Krispy Kremes.

Well, it never worked out that way; Dunkin’ Donuts is still on just about every block in Boston, and if a Krispy Kreme shop ever opened there, we didn’t see it.

Today, we see why. Our blogfriend Michelle Leder, who makes it her business to peruse corporate filings long past the point where most people give up, reveals today that Krispy Kreme is in deep doo-doo with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

What happened? Well, greed happened, says Michelle. Basically, the guys in charge at Krispy Kreme took their company public, became obsessed with projected earnings, misstated their accounts, all the while giving sweetheart deals to personal friends. We’ve heard this story before, haven’t we? Anyway, none of the guys who did this to Krispy Kreme work there any more (although we bet they got nice severance packages); we feel sorry for whoever is working there right now, especially the legal interns who are going to have to lug the several tons of financial restatements to the SEC.

The lesson we take away from all of this is the importance of business regulations. After all, if you’re lying about how much money you make, and you’re using sham sales to give extra money to yourself or your friends, it’s not really free enterprise, is it?

Some people like to talk about how we need to get rid of business regulations, because they discourage the ingenuity of the American businessperson.

We at the Blasphemy Blog say, loudly and proudly, Let Them Eat Regulations. Regulations are not just protection for consumers; they are the means by which commerce happens. Without the assurance of fair play, no one would trust each other enough to make an honest deal. And when every company feels the need to lie to every other company, we all suffer, because all that lying just drives up the cost of…well, everything.

Look, everyone wants to get ahead. Everyone wants their life to work out just a little bit better than they’re willing to work toward. What we need to realize, as human beings, is that the fantasy of getting ahead through means other people don’t know about is just that, a fantasy. Regulations are the way we remind ourselves that the rules are the same for everyone; we’re not special.