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> 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 begin

by 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.
  - bwhite 16y ago
    +1 to you for correcting my misunderstanding, though I stand by my comments about regulatory capture.

by jquery 16y ago

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.
- bwhite 16y ago
  +1 to you for correcting my misunderstanding, though I stand by my comments about regulatory capture.