Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I Shouldn't Mess With Trial Lawyers

I posted yesterday a gentle ribbing of a hot-shot US trial lawyer over his Blog’s views asserting that Adam Smith did not favour public funding of certain commercial activities, which, of course, is not quite the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Well, as I feared the defence lawyer (or maybe he’s ambidextrous and is also a prosecuting lawyer) came back with that penetrating advocacy for which they are rich and infamous. He brought on a star witness, not to refute my testimony, the details of which are bankable (I heard a tv lawyer say that once; true he turned out to be the principle villain, as we call London gangsters); no, he used as his character witness for his defence a scene from an Homer Simpson’s episode in which his rallying cry was ‘No Comeuppance’ (Exhibit 96, see: http://blawgletter.typepad.com/bbarnett/).

“Professor Gavin Kennedy, an eminent British economist [Editor: Now steady on, old chap, let’s not take the, er, Michael] and authority on Adam Smith, gently points out that the author of The Wealth of Nations actually favored some kinds of "meddling with market forces".

“But Blawgletter and Professor Kennedy will part as friends after all. For Blawgletter intended to highlight the contrast between those who believe that market forces can do no wrong (and who therefore denounce any government regulation) and those who argue that market forces can do great harm by, for example, creating monopolies, fixing prices, polluting air and water, selling unsafe products, producing vast inequality, and practicing frauds. Smith, as Professor Kennedy takes pains to illustrate, approved of government intervention to mitigate at least some of these market failures.

Blawgletter never said otherwise. No comeuppance!”


Comment

Brilliant! Game, set and match. A whitewash, much as England (the cricket team) experienced from the Aussies in the Ashes last week (don’t bother asking; I’m not sure either, living in Scotland and preferring football).

Good old Homer Simpson, the surprise last-minute witness who usually saves the day, beloved of all US Court Room dramas.

I pack my briefcase and head for the door; another battle royal for ‘freedom and justice’, as in the ‘Three Amigos’, and I wonder what tomorrow will bring? A new bag of briefs? Another desperate client? Or perhaps, another debt collector serving another warrant. Just, in case, I’ll put ‘Bruiser Barnett’s’ card in my empty wallet and see how he’ll get me off this one.

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