Children of the Scam

Richard Roesler over at The Spokesman-Review picks up on a none too flattering portrait of Spokane in Forbes:

There's the diploma mill that sold 10,000 phony college degrees to buyers in 131 countries. The $31 million parking-garage bond hustle that snared fund firms Vanguard, Nuveen and Smith Barney. And the many questionable enterprises around the continent that turn for legal and accounting services to firms in the heart of the Pacific Northwest's Inland Empire.

Welcome to Spokane, Wash., a metropolitan object lesson in what can befall the unwary when rugged individualism is revered and consumers unsuspecting.

I was somewhat waiting for a mention of our former 18th Legislative District Republican state rep Richard Curtis and his most excellent adventure to Spokane's casinos (among other amusements) while being a sitting member of the state gaming commission, but that's a minor quibble and somewhat inside baseball around these parts.  Rather, the article is a great primer on what happens when frontier capitalism is allowed to be unregulated.

Definitely worth a read.  And for Forbes of all media outlets to pierce the myth of rugged individualism just a bit is interesting in light of their motto, "Capitalist Tool".