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"Finance" is a pretty broad word; the payment card market (at least until recently) has been pretty free of regulation, certainly of regulation that would preve

by kgrin 16y ago

"Finance" is a pretty broad word; the payment card market (at least until recently) has been pretty free of regulation, certainly of regulation that would prevent the sort of abuses highlighted in the article. One interesting point is that the form of regulation that currently exists - the various laws and rules that led to the billion-dollar settlements - still don't have enough teeth (sort of like the "cost-of-doing-business" fines that gross polluters pay that are barely a day's worth of profits).

dantheman 16y ago
The trick to getting people to stop polluting is to remove limited liability and enforce property rights. If you have to ensure your business, your insurer will make sure that you follow their regulations and if you don't they won't pay and you'll go bankrupt. The property owner gets to sue the polluter, and thus they get compensated instead of the fine going to the government it goes to those who are hurt.
- notauser 16y ago
  The reason we have limited liability is because we wished to promote company ownership to more people. Personally I'm right behind the idea of telling people that if they, or their pension fund, owns one share in BP they are jointly and severally liable for the entire corporate obligation of the company. It's certainly make more people take exercising their oversight duties more seriously. Attendance at shareholder meetings to elect boards would be much higher. But I think it might have a few unexpected impacts on the availability of capital that you should think about. There aren't many people who would be willing to take that risk.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    I think things would change, but I don't know how much. Through insurance and bonding the risk can be mitigated, but the cost of owning the stock (the rates you need to pay) are now determined by the companies behavior so it becomes in their best interest to not cut corners. By aligning interests the problem goes away.
axiom 16y ago
Honestly you would call it free of regulation? take a look at others who have tried to start payment service companies - even in the relatively free internet space it's an absolute nightmare. If you actually tried to start a new credit card company your number one barrier is not providing a better service than VISA but somehow managing to deal with the absurd amounts of red tape and regulations that go along with that. e-Gold is a nice shining example of the kind of insanity that's involved. Finance, healthcare and education are the top 3 most heavily regulated industries in the world. Now purely as an intellectual exercise, what are the most backwards, broken, evil industries that everyone always complains about?

by kgrin 16y ago

dantheman 16y ago

The trick to getting people to stop polluting is to remove limited liability and enforce property rights. If you have to ensure your business, your insurer will make sure that you follow their regulations and if you don't they won't pay and you'll go bankrupt. The property owner gets to sue the polluter, and thus they get compensated instead of the fine going to the government it goes to those who are hurt.

notauser 16y ago
The reason we have limited liability is because we wished to promote company ownership to more people. Personally I'm right behind the idea of telling people that if they, or their pension fund, owns one share in BP they are jointly and severally liable for the entire corporate obligation of the company. It's certainly make more people take exercising their oversight duties more seriously. Attendance at shareholder meetings to elect boards would be much higher. But I think it might have a few unexpected impacts on the availability of capital that you should think about. There aren't many people who would be willing to take that risk.
- dantheman 16y ago
  I think things would change, but I don't know how much. Through insurance and bonding the risk can be mitigated, but the cost of owning the stock (the rates you need to pay) are now determined by the companies behavior so it becomes in their best interest to not cut corners. By aligning interests the problem goes away.

axiom 16y ago

Honestly you would call it free of regulation? take a look at others who have tried to start payment service companies - even in the relatively free internet space it's an absolute nightmare. If you actually tried to start a new credit card company your number one barrier is not providing a better service than VISA but somehow managing to deal with the absurd amounts of red tape and regulations that go along with that. e-Gold is a nice shining example of the kind of insanity that's involved. Finance, healthcare and education are the top 3 most heavily regulated industries in the world. Now purely as an intellectual exercise, what are the most backwards, broken, evil industries that everyone always complains about?