Duke Energy & North Carolina - Cronies Destroying Wealth

As an investor I had a good opinion of Duke Energy and as a graduate of UNC at Chapel Hill held a high regard for the state as well.  But today's Ash Spill Shows How Watchdog Was Defanged in the New York Times has changed that.  That the Governor, a former employee, facilitated the fouling of the state's waters and endangered it's citizens is a an example of the wealth destruction of crony capitalism.  Duke Energy is going to pay.  Management did not do the stockholders any favor by using political influence to slacken their operations.  BP is a much diminished company today because of a series of accidents from shoddy procedural ethic that culminated in the Gulf oil spill.  Tepco, Japan's nuclear utility, is completely bankrupt and bankrupting the country of Japan as well because of lax control and cozy relations with their crony government regulators.