It never ceases to amaze me. Maybe I–and you–should get used to it. Maybe i’m naive. But, you gotta love the gall…The Committee on Capiutal Markets Regulation has recommended that it be “harder for companies to be indicted by the government or sued by private lawyers, and urges policies to keep the Securities and Exchange Commission from adopting rules that impose high costs on business,” according to a report today in The New York Times (for reasons I won’t bore you with, I can’t link and format certain things today).

The Times’ article tells us more: “Federal indictments of corporations should occur only ‘in exceptional circumstances of pervasive culpability throughout all offices and ranks,’ the report stated.” Hmmm…and who will decide what is pervasive?

The full report isn’t to be released until today but this has a very deja vu feeling to it. You may remember that back when the de-regulation rage started, the whole idea of cost-benefit analysis was heavily promoted to decide whether, for example, environmental regulations made sense.

All this smells pretty bad. At a time when the concern over corporate malfesance and abusive power is on the rise, this Committee–chaired by, surprise, Glenn Hubbard, former Bush Administration Council of Economic Advisors chair (and wow didn’t he do right by the average American) and John Thornton, who was president of Goldman Sachs and now is chair of the inside-the-Beltway Brookings Institution–is trying to give corporate power an even looser leash.