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I just hope for all of our sakes that this is the final nail in the coffin of industry self-regulation. It does not work when it is against your interests to be

I just hope for all of our sakes that this is the final nail in the coffin of industry self-regulation. It does not work when it is against your interests to be safe; after all, we love to take risks. I also hope that America begins to realize that large corporations rarely have the interests of the population in mind. There needs to be checks and balances here.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
Excellent. So let's talk about regulating all these dot com companies...
- silentOpen 16y ago
  Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    I see. It's all those other people that need to be regulated. Got it.
    - CamperBob 16y ago
      No, just the ones who have the ability to destroy vast amounts of resources they don't own.
    - Vivtek 16y ago
      This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a billion in liability.) Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
      - waterlesscloud 16y ago
        I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
        Vivtek 16y ago
        I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the other guys should be regulated?" I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated. However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean, assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not sure what you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate all business as little as possible. Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible". In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
        waterlesscloud 16y ago
        There's no shifting here. It's the same topic. The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil industry, which is in fact highly regulated. Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people? On what basis do we make that judgement? If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy, or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm? Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real. Why do we trust them to regulate themselves? If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP, Shell, and Exxon? So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
- binspace 16y ago
  Against oil spills? Yeah, the .com I work for will not cause an oil spill. Data security, that's a different manner. Yes, companies should be secure if they claim to be, especially if they store data about their customers. Litigation and bad press, in these cases, seem to cover things well, since there tends to be more competition in the .com space. Fortunately most .com's do not need to keep sensitive information. Some do however. Sucks for them. In the case of a player in an oligopoly for a critical industry (Energy), it's a bit different. In safety-critical industries, there is strong regulation. Why not in industries which can wreak severe environmental havoc? The environmental damage BP caused may be worth more than the company itself. Like Exxon, I don't see them having to pay the full cost.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    In fact, their liability is explicitly capped at a mere $75 million by law.
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/33/usc_sec_33_00002704----000-.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/33/usc_sec_33_00002704----... Please read section (c). I'm perplexed that this half-truth continues to get thrown around as fact more than a month after the incident.
- hga 16y ago
  One of these days people like us are going to be grilled by a Congressional committee of people who have never actually done anything in their lives but politics, and just like in this article we're going to be asked: "You knew there were bugs in your software and you shipped/deployed it anyway?" What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
jquery 16y ago
> I also hope that America begins to realize that large corporations rarely have the interests of the population in mind Agreed. I also hope that America begins to realize that government and politicians rarely have the interests of the population in mind.
- binspace 16y ago
  I have been hearing that senators do listen to their constituents, especially if there is a massive email/letter campaign. Yes, this is at best inefficient. I just hope there's a discussion for more of a direct democracy. We have the technology... Of course we also need more transparency.
  - silentOpen 16y ago
    Do we have the technology? What is identity? What is autonomy? Who runs the democracy? How do you verify/authenticate? How do you stop political DoS? The US government wouldn't in a million years write legal code to implement a p2p network. Looks to me that we are in our infancy as techocrats.
- bwhite 16y ago
  The oil spill goes on the list of recent events in which the government isolated an industry from downside and encouraged risk-taking. BP's legal liability is capped at $75 million by Federal law. In the case in which an industry makes lots of money and/or that money is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small handful of players, the nearly inevitable result is regulatory capture. All the regulations in the world don't help when the legislature rubber-stamps laws written and endorsed by the industry. And enforcement is worthless when the regulators do not have sufficient experience to truly determine culpability.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    BP's legal liability is capped at $75 million by Federal law. No it bloody well isn't. The same section of statute contains an exception to the liability cap for gross negligence or willful misconduct: only in the case of genuinely unforeseeable accidents is liability limited to $75m - and even tht does not limit cleanup or repair costs to be borne by the rig operators.
dantheman 16y ago
Once again the problem is not government regulation -- if the corporation was exposed to the full liability of their actions they would make damn sure that they were insured to cover the damages. The insurance agency would make damn sure that they followed the rules and that appropriate risk mitigation was taking place, and the corporation would follow this since if they tried to sidestep or sneak by then the insurance agency would not cover the risk. These problems have long been worked out, and yes disasters would still happen, but at least in those cases the victims would be compensated. Remember the EPA and all sorts regulations on pollution are the government saying it's ok to pollute your land and water by X amount without compensating you. Your property rights are violated by government regulation not protected.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Well, if BP were exposed to the full liability here they would simply go out of business. I don't know about you, but personally I would rather people are prevented from killing me. Punishing them after the fact doesn't do me any good. Your solution actually still seems to still call for regulation, just by a private company instead of the government. I would submit that there isn't a problem having government do the regulation, the problem would simply be having the US government doing them.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    Any government doing the regulation has perverse incentives. The main effect of government regulation is to keep entrenched business successful and keep out new competition -- regulatory capture. The government has to do a balancing act because it doesn't compensate the victim and it doesn't want to drive businesses out of town -- how much regulation is too much, how much is too little. Look at how the FDA works -- they have nothing to lose when the deny a drug, and a lot hassle when the approve a drug that turns out to be harmful. This is why so many potentially effective drugs sit on the shelf waiting for further tests.

waterlesscloud 16y ago

Excellent. So let's talk about regulating all these dot com companies...

silentOpen 16y ago
Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  I see. It's all those other people that need to be regulated. Got it.
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    No, just the ones who have the ability to destroy vast amounts of resources they don't own.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a billion in liability.) Capitalism is not a suicide pact.
    - waterlesscloud 16y ago
      I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
      - Vivtek 16y ago
        I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the other guys should be regulated?" I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated. However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean, assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not sure what you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate all business as little as possible. Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible". In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
        waterlesscloud 16y ago
        There's no shifting here. It's the same topic. The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil industry, which is in fact highly regulated. Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people? On what basis do we make that judgement? If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy, or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm? Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real. Why do we trust them to regulate themselves? If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP, Shell, and Exxon? So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
binspace 16y ago
Against oil spills? Yeah, the .com I work for will not cause an oil spill. Data security, that's a different manner. Yes, companies should be secure if they claim to be, especially if they store data about their customers. Litigation and bad press, in these cases, seem to cover things well, since there tends to be more competition in the .com space. Fortunately most .com's do not need to keep sensitive information. Some do however. Sucks for them. In the case of a player in an oligopoly for a critical industry (Energy), it's a bit different. In safety-critical industries, there is strong regulation. Why not in industries which can wreak severe environmental havoc? The environmental damage BP caused may be worth more than the company itself. Like Exxon, I don't see them having to pay the full cost.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  In fact, their liability is explicitly capped at a mere $75 million by law.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/33/usc_sec_33_00002704----000-.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/33/usc_sec_33_00002704----... Please read section (c). I'm perplexed that this half-truth continues to get thrown around as fact more than a month after the incident.
hga 16y ago
One of these days people like us are going to be grilled by a Congressional committee of people who have never actually done anything in their lives but politics, and just like in this article we're going to be asked: "You knew there were bugs in your software and you shipped/deployed it anyway?" What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

jquery 16y ago

> I also hope that America begins to realize that large corporations rarely have the interests of the population in mind Agreed. I also hope that America begins to realize that government and politicians rarely have the interests of the population in mind.

binspace 16y ago
I have been hearing that senators do listen to their constituents, especially if there is a massive email/letter campaign. Yes, this is at best inefficient. I just hope there's a discussion for more of a direct democracy. We have the technology... Of course we also need more transparency.
- silentOpen 16y ago
  Do we have the technology? What is identity? What is autonomy? Who runs the democracy? How do you verify/authenticate? How do you stop political DoS? The US government wouldn't in a million years write legal code to implement a p2p network. Looks to me that we are in our infancy as techocrats.
bwhite 16y ago
The oil spill goes on the list of recent events in which the government isolated an industry from downside and encouraged risk-taking. BP's legal liability is capped at $75 million by Federal law. In the case in which an industry makes lots of money and/or that money is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small handful of players, the nearly inevitable result is regulatory capture. All the regulations in the world don't help when the legislature rubber-stamps laws written and endorsed by the industry. And enforcement is worthless when the regulators do not have sufficient experience to truly determine culpability.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  BP's legal liability is capped at $75 million by Federal law. No it bloody well isn't. The same section of statute contains an exception to the liability cap for gross negligence or willful misconduct: only in the case of genuinely unforeseeable accidents is liability limited to $75m - and even tht does not limit cleanup or repair costs to be borne by the rig operators.

dantheman 16y ago

Once again the problem is not government regulation -- if the corporation was exposed to the full liability of their actions they would make damn sure that they were insured to cover the damages. The insurance agency would make damn sure that they followed the rules and that appropriate risk mitigation was taking place, and the corporation would follow this since if they tried to sidestep or sneak by then the insurance agency would not cover the risk. These problems have long been worked out, and yes disasters would still happen, but at least in those cases the victims would be compensated. Remember the EPA and all sorts regulations on pollution are the government saying it's ok to pollute your land and water by X amount without compensating you. Your property rights are violated by government regulation not protected.

loewenskind 16y ago
Well, if BP were exposed to the full liability here they would simply go out of business. I don't know about you, but personally I would rather people are prevented from killing me. Punishing them after the fact doesn't do me any good. Your solution actually still seems to still call for regulation, just by a private company instead of the government. I would submit that there isn't a problem having government do the regulation, the problem would simply be having the US government doing them.
- dantheman 16y ago
  Any government doing the regulation has perverse incentives. The main effect of government regulation is to keep entrenched business successful and keep out new competition -- regulatory capture. The government has to do a balancing act because it doesn't compensate the victim and it doesn't want to drive businesses out of town -- how much regulation is too much, how much is too little. Look at how the FDA works -- they have nothing to lose when the deny a drug, and a lot hassle when the approve a drug that turns out to be harmful. This is why so many potentially effective drugs sit on the shelf waiting for further tests.