Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Quote of the day
"Greed is guiding much of the world, not common sense or intelligence. Those last two won't kick in until we've created an emergency and/or catastrophe for ourselves, sadly." --me
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"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
“Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.” ― Albert Einstein.
So based on this...should we work to harness greed for good, or continue the probably futile effort to eliminate it?
First of all, those aren't the only two choices.
My take and my point would only be to make sure there is enough oversight to avoid things that took place, for instance, that brought about the 2008 national and worldwide financial debacle and near total collapse. Things like that and the BP Gulf oil spill, etc. It doesn't have to be extreme at all and shouldn't be, it just has to have common sense to it.
From a blog I've just started reading:
"Regulation is almost always supported by big business, but hurts small business
As a near-universal truth...regulation is more easily navigated by large organizations with swarms of lawyers than by small firms with few lawyers. Further, fixed cost regulations (almost?) always fall harder on smaller firms than on larger firms. As a general rule, one can find the big players in any given industry as strong supporters of any given regulation...as it gives them a competitive advantage, and a barrier to entry. Usually, this (net) screws the consumers. From personal experience...Blue Cross was heavily involved in drafting ObamaCare...and it has far greater impact on smaller insurers, than on big ones."
Regulations tend to be designed as if they can solve problems. Even if the regulations were designed by the best few minds on the planet, they aren't the most informed minds, nor the most motivated. Roughly 35 minutes after a new financial regulation is passed, Goldman Sachs (effectively) posts a $10 Million dollar bonus to the first person who figures out how to game the regulation, legally, but completely unfairly. Since $10M is more than the entire yearly budget for the group that got to write the regulation...they can't win the game. Regulators solve yesterday's problem, and cause tomorrow's."
Links to a 2 part post on Libertarian ideas.
Another relevant thought from the same posts:
"Personal liability is important
If you do bad stuff, you should be liable for your bad stuff. If you are a member of a "government protection force", and you confiscate a free citizen's camera...you should personally be liable. If you are a member of a corporation, and you make a decision that results in 3000 deaths in India, you should be personally liable. Never forget that the corporation is a creature of the state."
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