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When i refer to the left, i mean the big govt crowd from both parties. (ie Dubya was very left wing, he implemented no child, prescription drugs, he policed the world, said deficits didn't matter and regulated heavily with sarbanes oxley. these are all progressive principles)
now i know george dubya bush was so concerned about the welfare of the common man that he signed this onerous legislation (sarbanes-oxley) into law. remember, he did it to protect you the little guy! are there some people out there who maybe think he did this to give the big banks and big corporations a leg up?
any one else consider that other regulations might do the same?
now i know george dubya bush was so concerned about the welfare of the common man that he signed this onerous legislation (sarbanes-oxley) into law. remember, he did it to protect you the little guy! are there some people out there who maybe think he did this to give the big banks and big corporations a leg up?
any one else consider that other regulations might do the same?
what are your thoughts?
Why do you say it could give big banks and corporations a leg up? Wasn't a lack of regulation implicated as a factor in the subprime mortage problem? I'm sure deregulating pay and allowing companies to pay people pennies an hour would be awesome for business and profit, but what good does it do for everybody else? On the other hand, over regulation can hurt productivity to the point of driving business to other countries. In my opinion, no regulation is just as bad as over regulation.
I know that "free market" supposedly handles this because people can choose to not work for or do business with companies that would exploit employees. However, if company A sees the profit company B is making by under paying their employees, then company A is going to follow suit to remain competitive. Soon you don't have the choice to go elsewhere because all of the companies are doing the same thing. Companies don't give a rat's ass about anything besides profit. I don't trust them to do the right thing. That is, in my opinion, the biggest failing of letting the "free market" run things.
I've seen tons of government regulation accumulate in every conceivable business activity in my lifetime, but it seems to be universally true that the people who commit abuses are not hampered by all these regulations in the least.
When working for local government in Planning, Zoning and Building, we spent all our time harassing homeowners for tiny things that really affected nobody. Then I remember one day driving down I-95 and seeing a huge excavation taking place in a large housing development near the highway, and I could see that it was in violation of pretty much every Code relating to such things. I asked about it at work, and was told it was being done by one of the wealthy local companies who was in tight with the Director of PZB. They got a total pass and didn't even have to go through the process--although of all the people we dealt with, they had the most money, and the scale of the project had massive environmental impact.
This proved to be the rule: the little guy, who was doing no harm and actually cared about the environment and impact on neighbors, had to jump through endless hoops and waste far too much money that he could not afford to lose. The large scale offenders simply visited the office of their high-up government buddy, and were unofficially exempt from regulation, while they wreaked havoc on the environment and the citizens of the neighborhood.
Today in my little neighborhood I pay an additional $200 a year for a "Homeowners Association." Yet my home's privacy was destroyed 2 years ago when the 5-acre granite hill lot next to mine was bought, dynamited for 6 months straight, cleared right along my property line, the house build RIGHT on the setback as close to my house as possible, high-intensity lights were installed that ONLY shine on my house (in a rural area that, except for this house, formerly had NO light pollution). And let's not forget that they never bothered to pave their driveway (after spending probably $100,000 on dynamite), which now flows a river of dirt and rocks down on top of my paved driveway for about 100', and makes our winter snow-blowing a safety hazard.
My point here is that regulations and official ways to try and deal with thoughtless and arrogant people (or companies) pretty much NEVER works in practice. All it does is load the non-offender up with costs and hassle, slows the economy, reduces quality of life, and allows government even more power.
now i know george dubya bush was so concerned about the welfare of the common man that he signed this onerous legislation (sarbanes-oxley) into law. remember, he did it to protect you the little guy! are there some people out there who maybe think he did this to give the big banks and big corporations a leg up?
The only people who benefited from SOX are the smaller tier accounting firms due to both the breakup of the larger firms and the hiring bonanza in the years afterward (and still ongoing to an extent) for auditors. Ultimately it made it a little bit more costly to do the same chicanery that corporations were doing prior to Enron, that's about it. But by then the smarter companies were getting themselves into the investment game, like GM did with GMAC, now Ally Bank.
Why do you say it could give big banks and corporations a leg up? Wasn't a lack of regulation implicated as a factor in the subprime mortage problem? I'm sure deregulating pay and allowing companies to pay people pennies an hour would be awesome for business and profit, but what good does it do for everybody else? On the other hand, over regulation can hurt productivity to the point of driving business to other countries. In my opinion, no regulation is just as bad as over regulation.
I know that "free market" supposedly handles this because people can choose to not work for or do business with companies that would exploit employees. However, if company A sees the profit company B is making by under paying their employees, then company A is going to follow suit to remain competitive. Soon you don't have the choice to go elsewhere because all of the companies are doing the same thing. Companies don't give a rat's ass about anything besides profit. I don't trust them to do the right thing. That is, in my opinion, the biggest failing of letting the "free market" run things.
There needs to be balance.
only the free market economists predicted the housing meltdown. the reid's, pelosi's and barnie frank's of this world told us we were NUTS and CRACKPOTS when we said that the housing boom would leave a catastrophic mess when it eventually bust. we predicted it because we saw artificial interest rates and credit expansion. that was our story then and it is our story today. when it did go bust, progressives everywhere who didn't see it coming, all of a sudden had the solutions?????
sarbanes oxley placed huge constraints and costs on public companies. it effectively shut out business doing less than $20 mil p/a. the result is that someone looking to finance smaller business was left with fewer alternatives. either they could sell off to a big conglomerate or they could go to the banks for funding. perhaps i'm crazy, but that seems to be a big leg up for the big boys. it also removed options for smaller investors.
for the panacea that labor legislation has promised, it has done untold damage to the poor. anyone whose skills are not worth the minimum wage have been shut out of the market and shut out from developing their skills tgo a point were they can earn decent money. yup during booming times it is difficult to see this damage, but as unemployment sky rockets it will eventually become evident. of course i will get the retort from someone that i believe in slave labor. my answer to that is yes, i believe that if someone has no skills and they are willing to work for free to acquire skills, that should be their right to do so.
THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT REGULATION IS DAMAGING. THE ONLY QUESTION IS WHETHER IT IS LESS DAMAGING THAN WHAT IT AIMS TO CURE! i WOULD ARGUE THAT IN EVERY CASE IT IS
When i refer to the left, i mean the big govt crowd from both parties. (ie Dubya was very left wing, he implemented no child, prescription drugs, he policed the world, said deficits didn't matter and regulated heavily with sarbanes oxley. these are all progressive principles)
now i know george dubya bush was so concerned about the welfare of the common man that he signed this onerous legislation (sarbanes-oxley) into law. remember, he did it to protect you the little guy! are there some people out there who maybe think he did this to give the big banks and big corporations a leg up?
any one else consider that other regulations might do the same?
what are your thoughts?
W was a hard right big oil corporatist shill. The prescription drug plan was to keep bankrolling his big pharma cronies, lying to congress to get approval for his false war in Iraq and other warmongering, bankrolling the snot out of the rich from his disastrous tax cut bill, letting big oil run wild leading to the gulf oil spill nightmare,...
Huh? W was a hard right big oil corporatist shill. The prescription drug plan was to keep bankrolling his big pharma cronies, lying to congress to get approval for his false war in Iraq and other warmongering, bankrolling the snot out of the rich from his disastrous tax cut bill, letting big oil run wild leading to the gulf oil spill nightmare,...
imo, the hard right is for "Limited Govt"! george w doesn't represent those values. he is left wing regardless of his rhetoric
Now wait--what happened to Ayn Rand loving Alan Greenspan with his message of "business will self regulate?" Congress--under both D and R adminstrations--cut the regs--and the financial industry went on a wild binge. Now we're dealing with their hangover. Actually, it's more like we're a victim of their drunk driving accident.
Regs that stop me from getting cancer from chemicals in my water, make products safe, and stop people from playing hard and loose with MY money, etc. are good. Regs that just create more paper to shuffle without creating a clear outcome are bad. You can't have any organization to society if you don't control the ability of people to take advantage of others for their own benefit. I'm all for a free market, as long as someone else can't hurt me to make big bucks, especially when they control the process and I have no voice.
I have a say in government policy through my legislators. I have no say in corporate policies that create monopoly pricing. The petroleum and drug industries are the most abusive. Without strict regulation all capital markets get turned into casino’s by a few gamblers with other people’s money. Everyone, except the initiators, suffers when the booms turn into crashes.
I have a say in government policy through my legislators. I have no say in corporate policies that create monopoly pricing. The petroleum and drug industries are the most abusive. Without strict regulation all capital markets get turned into casino’s by a few gamblers with other people’s money. Everyone, except the initiators, suffers when the booms turn into crashes.
capital markets are casinos. the only reason they're allowed to gamble with your money is because a) they're insured by the govt and b) the tax code. if your deposits were not guaranteed by the federal govt, you could deposit your money with banks which don't gamble. if you didn't receive tax incentives to invest your money with govt approved gamblers you wouldn't do it.
for the millionth time, govt creates 99.999% of the monopolies and oligopolies. there are very few examples of free market monopolies, and fewer that have lasted
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