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...
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]
http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com
Archives at 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/
