"The public still retains the expectations of the mechanical honesty era, and is an easy mark."

Is this statement suggesting that the "work" of the businesses exploiting these unrealistic expectations is "easy".

When a country's most successful companies are "middlemen" built upon a foundation of easily exploiting misplaced trust (misplaced belief in mechanical honesty) and governments actively seek to encourage more such "entrepreneurship", what does that mean for the future.