David : Not quite sure what you are driving at. The author is a CATO Institute honcho of some kind, and, last I looked, CATO people are about as libertarian as anyone gets. By and large I was impressed with the article --as far as it went. Like most libertarians a lot of stuff got left out, but, then, I guess everyone does that except about different things. I like to think that Radical Centrists are more "fair and balanced" than anyone else, possibly we usually are, but my best guess is that we simply cannot see some of our own sins for what they are. Anyway, my feeling is that we made some real progress today toward a much better understanding of what it is we need to solve. Good day for passing out gold stars.
Billy ======================================================= In a message dated 4/20/2010 8:24:37 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Hello Ernie, The first sentence you highlight means that there is a revolving door between the regulators and the regulated. Kind of like the Democratic and Republican regulators go into the business world in the companies that they used to regulate. Or vice-versa. Like Tim Geitner used to work for Goldman Sachs, and now as Treasury Secretary he regulates Goldman Sachs. But there's no conflict of interest here, move along now..... Like the UAW being part owners of Government Motors and Chrysler as well as their unionized workforce. What will the UAW demand of companies that are not partially owned by the UAW? More benefits and money so as to make them uncompetitive? Probably. How did the UAW get into this position? By having bought the Democratic party. So are the regulators, reporting to a Democratic President through various Democratic appointed officials, really going to "oversee" things for the benefit of the Democratic Party, uh, I mean the PEOPLE? (The PEOPLE? Yeah, right, pull the OTHER finger.) If the regulators are corrupt, the regulations are not evenly applied and don't mean crap. "Pay to play." Hence the article was written about "Crony Capitalism." I get some WSJ e-mail with some of the articles linked. Like this one. David "Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke On 4/20/2010 3:33 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: Hi Billy, I know you probably know and agree with all the arguments I'm going to make, but I feel compelled to spell them out... On Apr 20, 2010, at 12:32 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Public choice theory has identified the root causes of regulatory failure as the capture of regulators by the industry being regulated. Except, the libertarian argument is apparently that the root cause of regulatory failure is the *existence* of regulations, and that the only necessary and sufficient solution is to simply eliminate regulation altogether. Piling on more rules and statutes will not produce something different than it has in the past. Reliance on affirmative principles of truth-telling in accounting statements and a duty of care would be preferable. Deregulation is not some kind of libertarian mantra but an absolute necessity if we are to exit crony capitalism. I agree that Sunlight is probably the best infectant, but it is hardly the only one. The empirical reality is that humans make irrational choices all the time, and therefore simply providing accurate information doesn't solve all your problems. The reality is that regulation does have a non-trivial cost, but it also provides a non-trivial benefit. There is surely a case for reforming our regulatory environment, because of the valid issues raised here. But the libertarian "solution" is a simplistic and problematic as the statist solution of creating *more* regulations. We really need some fresh, healthy, data-driven alternatives. -- Ernie P. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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