One word: greed. Follow the money. There are a lot of people out there (you see some of them right here in FR) cheer this kind of crap on because they think it will make an easy buck, basically getting rich by doing little or no work (e.g., selling out our assets to the highest bidders). In truth, only a very few people will get very, very rich, at the expense of the rest of the country and its citizens. The pols have their hands in the till. Their power depends on money.