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> But we generally regard doing regulation as something the government should bear its own costs for rather than passing on to the regulatee. How so? If the go

> But we generally regard doing regulation as something the government should bear its own costs for rather than passing on to the regulatee. How so? If the government regulates that you shouldn't dispose your chemical waste into the river because that's bad for everybody, then it's still your problem to figure out what to do with that chemical waste, after all, it's your waste and not theirs. The government has no responsibility for bearing any costs which result from you merely following the rule of law.

lmm 9y ago
> How so? If the government regulates that you shouldn't dispose your chemical waste into the river because that's bad for everybody, then it's still your problem to figure out what to do with that chemical waste, after all, it's your waste and not theirs. It's your problem to figure out how to dispose it safely, sure. But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. And that's how it is with a lot of banking regulation: complying isn't the expensive part, measuring and demonstrating that you're complying is.
- freeflight 9y ago
  > But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. The government has a reason for wanting to audit that waste because it's dangerous and if it's not properly stored in can cause untold damage to whole generations. If we could trust private interests to do the same, we would, for the longest time that's exactly what we did. But experience has shown that private interests usually outweigh public interests. Meaning: If we let people just do whatever they want, they tend to do quite a bit of public damage in the pursuit of their private profits, that's why we started to regulate. So, if your business involves handling dangerous substances you better make sure you have the facilities and capabilities to properly dispose of them, the government will, rightfully, hold you accountable to that because if they don't then no one else will. Let's also keep in mind that it's usually the public, aka the government, who has to pay the clean-up costs when some big private venture turned out to be quite destructive, they are usually the ones left holding the bill while all the private profits already went outside the country.
- zzalpha 9y ago
  It's your problem to figure out how to dispose it safely, sure. But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. And that's how it is with a lot of banking regulation: complying isn't the expensive part, measuring and demonstrating that you're complying is. This is simply inaccurate. As just one obvious example: the cost of environmental assessments are borne by developers, which is all about measuring compliance. Similarly, common accounting regulations, which require both specific practices as well as specific records retention rules, to support audit activities, also impose costs on businesses. Heck, at the more individual level, if I want to put a building on a piece of land, bylaws state I'm responsible for producing site plans, construction details, etc, to allow the municipality to assess and approve the work to ensure I'm complying with zoning requirements, and I also bear the cost of safety inspections and so forth during and after construction to ensure I'm complying with the building code.

lmm 9y ago

> How so? If the government regulates that you shouldn't dispose your chemical waste into the river because that's bad for everybody, then it's still your problem to figure out what to do with that chemical waste, after all, it's your waste and not theirs. It's your problem to figure out how to dispose it safely, sure. But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. And that's how it is with a lot of banking regulation: complying isn't the expensive part, measuring and demonstrating that you're complying is.

freeflight 9y ago
> But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. The government has a reason for wanting to audit that waste because it's dangerous and if it's not properly stored in can cause untold damage to whole generations. If we could trust private interests to do the same, we would, for the longest time that's exactly what we did. But experience has shown that private interests usually outweigh public interests. Meaning: If we let people just do whatever they want, they tend to do quite a bit of public damage in the pursuit of their private profits, that's why we started to regulate. So, if your business involves handling dangerous substances you better make sure you have the facilities and capabilities to properly dispose of them, the government will, rightfully, hold you accountable to that because if they don't then no one else will. Let's also keep in mind that it's usually the public, aka the government, who has to pay the clean-up costs when some big private venture turned out to be quite destructive, they are usually the ones left holding the bill while all the private profits already went outside the country.
zzalpha 9y ago
It's your problem to figure out how to dispose it safely, sure. But if they want to e.g. audit where the waste is going, that would be widely seen as something the government should do/pay for themselves. And that's how it is with a lot of banking regulation: complying isn't the expensive part, measuring and demonstrating that you're complying is. This is simply inaccurate. As just one obvious example: the cost of environmental assessments are borne by developers, which is all about measuring compliance. Similarly, common accounting regulations, which require both specific practices as well as specific records retention rules, to support audit activities, also impose costs on businesses. Heck, at the more individual level, if I want to put a building on a piece of land, bylaws state I'm responsible for producing site plans, construction details, etc, to allow the municipality to assess and approve the work to ensure I'm complying with zoning requirements, and I also bear the cost of safety inspections and so forth during and after construction to ensure I'm complying with the building code.