On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 7:41 AM, Bruce Bostwick <lihan161...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > I think you're oversimplifying the arguments for regulation. I don't > believe anyone involved in the process seriously believes regulation is a > one-dimensional parameter,
I think you give politicians far too much credit. I have no doubt that quite a few politicians do not put any more thought into regulation than "more", and "I have to make it look like I am doing something". > The measures that were most effective in the past year or so in terms of > containing progressive collapse Which measures would that be, and how do you know they were beneficial in the way you claim? > one which, when left > completely alone, tends to evolve toward increasing instability and > ultimately just the kind of collapse we saw a year ago. That is what the politicians constantly claim. The reality of the matter is that no one really knows whether there would have been a "collapse". In fact, it may well be regulations and unintended consequences of regulations that made things worse than they might have been. > The fact that regulations designed to enforce a > certain degree of stability and the presence of certain fail-safes in the > system that prevent progressive collapse when rogue players do play fast and > loose is not a one-dimensional parameter at all, it's inherent in the nature > of the regulations that are, in fact, necessary to protect the market system > as a whole from the risky behavior of the people it's composed of. Just because regulations are "designed" to do something does not mean that people will behave as the designers expected. In fact, it is often the opposite. People devote a lot of energy trying to find flaws in the regulations so that they can do what they wanted to in the first place. And find flaws they do. > Never forget that you're dealing with a system made up of the collective > behavior of millions of individual human beings, And the corollary: governments are made up of the collective behavior of many politicians and technocrats whose sole motivation is to gain more power and to hold on to more power. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
