5 ms·

Most such rules are in place because slimebags abused the system, and in some cases taking the world economy with it. I'm all for making more efficient auditing

by tabtab 9y ago

Most such rules are in place because slimebags abused the system, and in some cases taking the world economy with it. I'm all for making more efficient auditing rules, but one has to be careful not the throw the baby out with the bathwater. Perhaps have compliance tiers such that smaller co's can optionally be in a riskier and less audited stock system or level. However, we probably don't want too much of the economy in that pool. As it is, private investors may be willing to take on riskier and even dodgier companies who don't want auditors snooping around. That's fine: if the rich want to gamble with dodgy companies via private investment, go for it.

dcosson 9y ago
But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? It seems a lot like the Uber/taxi fight - I imagine at some point somebody painted a car like a taxi and kidnapped some riders, and we needed a way for riders to be able to trust that the driver is safe to ride with so licenses/medallions came about. Now with the internet and verified identity of drivers, turns out we don't need it anymore and Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car.
- kelnos 9y ago
  > Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car The people who have been attacked by Uber drivers wouldn't agree with that statement. I think Uber/Lyft/etc. are largely safe, but their standards are pretty low, and for a long time they weren't even doing proper criminal background checks on prospective drivers. Agreed that the old taxi system was entirely broken and needed to get shaken up, but Uber was hardly a responsible darling in all this.
  - cobbzilla 9y ago
    While I also agree Uber is no darling, the proper comparison would be between driver-on-passenger assaults for ridesharing services versus traditional taxi. How do they stack up? It's not immediately obvious which one would be safer. In theory ridesharing yields a more extensive data/evidence trail (driver identity, passenger identity, GPS history, etc), making assault much harder to get away with; this would seem to be a better deterrent than relatively anonymous cab rides. I did a bit of googling and can't find any hard numbers that compare the two types of transport from a driver-on-passenger assault POV. I would welcome cited figures anyone else might have.
  - salvar 9y ago
    When you say "doing proper criminal background checks", do you mean "making sure no one who has re-entered society after serving their sentence is allowed to work for them"?
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      Countries with good rehabilitation also do this, certain types of sexual crimes have high recidivism rates despite the best efforts. There's rehabilitation and there's realism and protecting the public, there's a balance. On my local Nextdoor someone posted recently about a trial being finished and warning that his wife had been sexually assaulted in a nearby area. The actual newspaper story was a little heart-breaking, on the one hand the guy clearly had been trying to improve and felt remorse, on the other he's a menace to women, he literally walked up to the women and put his hand up her skirt.
    - lmm 9y ago
      There are a lot of careers in which criminals can and should be given a chance to reenter society without unacceptably compromising public safety. Driving taxis is not one of them.
    - deadbunny 9y ago
      Like this guy?[1]. I'm sure he's a changed man. While they may have "served their debt" would a taxi firm or someone like Uber really want to hire a serial rapist? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys
      - salvar 9y ago
        Yes, I was precisely referring to this particular person. Thanks for the honest debate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- blackoil 9y ago
  ain't lot of those rules came up after Enron. That was pure fraud and not that long ago. Also, Uber's behavior isn't helping the cause in anyway.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? Of course it is. The system rewards greed, which is a strong incentive to bend the rules or even break them if one thinks they can get away with it. That is why tight controls are necessary, even if they are costly.
- pdonis 9y ago
  > how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system How long ago is 2008? > are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? Sure seems like it to me.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    2008 could not have happened without Freddy and Fanny. Government shares a huge amount of responsibility.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      Yes, agreed. See my other comment upthread.
    - JamesBarney 9y ago
      The housing bubbles happened outside the U.S., they lost market share as the bubble ramped up, and they did not own the riskiest loans. Why do you think 2008 could not have happened without Fanny and Freddy?
  - sehugg 9y ago
    How about Wells Fargo, 2016? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scan...
  - tyu100 9y ago
    I don't think you have a clear idea of what you are talking about in terms of regulation. As mentioned earlier, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations on public company reporting (which is what is being discussed here) precedes the 2008 financial crisis. There are different regulations that came into place on banks after the 2008 crisis like the Basel III capital requirements that attempt to solve a different problem.
  - hueving 9y ago
    2008 had absolutely nothing to do with the regulations normal public corporations operate under while they are public. Stop bringing it up in the context of SOX because it's irrelevant and goes to show more than anything that the onerous regulation is ineffective because it came out before 2008.
- wtfstatists 9y ago
  How does license help ?
kelnos 9y ago
> but one has to be careful not the throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's arguable, though, that setting up onerous regulations is itself an example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A ton of otherwise honest companies are required to spend money on compliance because of the actions of a (relative) few bad apples. The thing that always gets me is that the industries that have grown up around simply guiding and auditing other companies around process and financial compliance suck billions of dollars out of the economy that could be spent in better ways. Not saying we should throw away the entirety of this regulatory apparatus, because it does serve a useful function, but I think it would be wise to examine the cost of regulation and eliminate parts that cost more than they're worth.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  I really wish we placed more emphasis on significant and wide reaching criminal charges for Executives and other employees who are involved in the bad behavior. It makes more sense to punish those who cheat than to create onerous regulations to prevent cheating. (Of course no reason you can't have appropriate levels of regulation alongside severe penalties for the white collar crimes the regulations are supposed to prevent.)
  - pdonis 9y ago
    While I agree this is a good idea in principle, the problem in practice is that the government is complicit in the cheating. Many of the private actors in the 2008 debacle didn't get punished because the government officials who would have had to punish them had given them nudge nudge wink wink approval behind the scenes. Also, when things started to go south, government officials were calling the shots. (Not to mention the obvious revolving door effect--government officials regulating a given industry are usually former executives in that industry, and often go back and forth several times in their careers.)
- losteric 9y ago
  The US as a whole really struggles with self-regulation... we tend towards the extremes of seems deregulation or a byzantine web regulations spawning off a new industry that lobbies for answering every problem with more regulations. Why not create stronger incentives for individuals? Simplify regulations with massive painful corporate fines and jail/asset forfeiture for culpable leadership. Red tape is implementation details, let them figure it out. A laser pointer is the best way to herd cats.
jeffbax 9y ago
Rules being in place don't mean they're effective, having the desired outcome, or not causing other adverse effects. > The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. Tends to ring true more often than not.
privateSFacct 9y ago
SOX was 2003 - and after it was implemented a bunch of folks nearly took down the world economy all while saying they complied with both SOX and the "highest ethical standards". The folks who wanted to take down the country faced almost NO consequence and SOX did little to prevent it. Seriously - thousands of companies jump through regulatory hoops - and the aggressive players get off with nothing. There are lots of people (most people) working to do the RIGHT thing. It's SUPER annoying to have people put in huge efforts to get a bunch of small things right, and then to have goverment totally fail to enforce truly 101 big things. I would trade out some of the stuff that 4,000 companies and 100,000's of individual have to jump through for even 100 companies getting some actual enforcement action. Everything from IRS audit to anything else you can think of, just at least make there be some consequence for the 101 style abuse of the systems. Even auditing another 10,000 individuals, 200 additional executives - the number of folks putting money offshore - with full disclosure now available through leaked documents and information sharing, there should be 1000's of cases to chase this stuff down, not just voluntary disclosure programs.
cdiddy2 9y ago
we have different compliance tiered markets. they are the hell holes known as the OTC. with tiers like QX/QB/Pink. lots of risk there
syshum 9y ago
>>>Most such rules are in place because slimebags abused the system While true it was those same "slimebags" that wrote the rules. They made the system complex and convoluted so they could legally do everything they were doing before only now with a full government liability shield protecting them.

by tabtab 9y ago

dcosson 9y ago

But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? It seems a lot like the Uber/taxi fight - I imagine at some point somebody painted a car like a taxi and kidnapped some riders, and we needed a way for riders to be able to trust that the driver is safe to ride with so licenses/medallions came about. Now with the internet and verified identity of drivers, turns out we don't need it anymore and Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car.

kelnos 9y ago
> Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car The people who have been attacked by Uber drivers wouldn't agree with that statement. I think Uber/Lyft/etc. are largely safe, but their standards are pretty low, and for a long time they weren't even doing proper criminal background checks on prospective drivers. Agreed that the old taxi system was entirely broken and needed to get shaken up, but Uber was hardly a responsible darling in all this.
- cobbzilla 9y ago
  While I also agree Uber is no darling, the proper comparison would be between driver-on-passenger assaults for ridesharing services versus traditional taxi. How do they stack up? It's not immediately obvious which one would be safer. In theory ridesharing yields a more extensive data/evidence trail (driver identity, passenger identity, GPS history, etc), making assault much harder to get away with; this would seem to be a better deterrent than relatively anonymous cab rides. I did a bit of googling and can't find any hard numbers that compare the two types of transport from a driver-on-passenger assault POV. I would welcome cited figures anyone else might have.
- salvar 9y ago
  When you say "doing proper criminal background checks", do you mean "making sure no one who has re-entered society after serving their sentence is allowed to work for them"?
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    Countries with good rehabilitation also do this, certain types of sexual crimes have high recidivism rates despite the best efforts. There's rehabilitation and there's realism and protecting the public, there's a balance. On my local Nextdoor someone posted recently about a trial being finished and warning that his wife had been sexually assaulted in a nearby area. The actual newspaper story was a little heart-breaking, on the one hand the guy clearly had been trying to improve and felt remorse, on the other he's a menace to women, he literally walked up to the women and put his hand up her skirt.
  - lmm 9y ago
    There are a lot of careers in which criminals can and should be given a chance to reenter society without unacceptably compromising public safety. Driving taxis is not one of them.
  - deadbunny 9y ago
    Like this guy?[1]. I'm sure he's a changed man. While they may have "served their debt" would a taxi firm or someone like Uber really want to hire a serial rapist? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys
    - salvar 9y ago
      Yes, I was precisely referring to this particular person. Thanks for the honest debate.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
blackoil 9y ago
ain't lot of those rules came up after Enron. That was pure fraud and not that long ago. Also, Uber's behavior isn't helping the cause in anyway.
enraged_camel 9y ago
>>But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? Of course it is. The system rewards greed, which is a strong incentive to bend the rules or even break them if one thinks they can get away with it. That is why tight controls are necessary, even if they are costly.
pdonis 9y ago
> how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system How long ago is 2008? > are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era? Sure seems like it to me.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  2008 could not have happened without Freddy and Fanny. Government shares a huge amount of responsibility.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    Yes, agreed. See my other comment upthread.
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    The housing bubbles happened outside the U.S., they lost market share as the bubble ramped up, and they did not own the riskiest loans. Why do you think 2008 could not have happened without Fanny and Freddy?
- sehugg 9y ago
  How about Wells Fargo, 2016? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scan...
- tyu100 9y ago
  I don't think you have a clear idea of what you are talking about in terms of regulation. As mentioned earlier, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations on public company reporting (which is what is being discussed here) precedes the 2008 financial crisis. There are different regulations that came into place on banks after the 2008 crisis like the Basel III capital requirements that attempt to solve a different problem.
- hueving 9y ago
  2008 had absolutely nothing to do with the regulations normal public corporations operate under while they are public. Stop bringing it up in the context of SOX because it's irrelevant and goes to show more than anything that the onerous regulation is ineffective because it came out before 2008.
wtfstatists 9y ago
How does license help ?

kelnos 9y ago

> but one has to be careful not the throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's arguable, though, that setting up onerous regulations is itself an example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A ton of otherwise honest companies are required to spend money on compliance because of the actions of a (relative) few bad apples. The thing that always gets me is that the industries that have grown up around simply guiding and auditing other companies around process and financial compliance suck billions of dollars out of the economy that could be spent in better ways. Not saying we should throw away the entirety of this regulatory apparatus, because it does serve a useful function, but I think it would be wise to examine the cost of regulation and eliminate parts that cost more than they're worth.

shkkmo 9y ago
I really wish we placed more emphasis on significant and wide reaching criminal charges for Executives and other employees who are involved in the bad behavior. It makes more sense to punish those who cheat than to create onerous regulations to prevent cheating. (Of course no reason you can't have appropriate levels of regulation alongside severe penalties for the white collar crimes the regulations are supposed to prevent.)
- pdonis 9y ago
  While I agree this is a good idea in principle, the problem in practice is that the government is complicit in the cheating. Many of the private actors in the 2008 debacle didn't get punished because the government officials who would have had to punish them had given them nudge nudge wink wink approval behind the scenes. Also, when things started to go south, government officials were calling the shots. (Not to mention the obvious revolving door effect--government officials regulating a given industry are usually former executives in that industry, and often go back and forth several times in their careers.)
losteric 9y ago
The US as a whole really struggles with self-regulation... we tend towards the extremes of seems deregulation or a byzantine web regulations spawning off a new industry that lobbies for answering every problem with more regulations. Why not create stronger incentives for individuals? Simplify regulations with massive painful corporate fines and jail/asset forfeiture for culpable leadership. Red tape is implementation details, let them figure it out. A laser pointer is the best way to herd cats.

jeffbax 9y ago

Rules being in place don't mean they're effective, having the desired outcome, or not causing other adverse effects. > The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. Tends to ring true more often than not.

privateSFacct 9y ago

SOX was 2003 - and after it was implemented a bunch of folks nearly took down the world economy all while saying they complied with both SOX and the "highest ethical standards". The folks who wanted to take down the country faced almost NO consequence and SOX did little to prevent it. Seriously - thousands of companies jump through regulatory hoops - and the aggressive players get off with nothing. There are lots of people (most people) working to do the RIGHT thing. It's SUPER annoying to have people put in huge efforts to get a bunch of small things right, and then to have goverment totally fail to enforce truly 101 big things. I would trade out some of the stuff that 4,000 companies and 100,000's of individual have to jump through for even 100 companies getting some actual enforcement action. Everything from IRS audit to anything else you can think of, just at least make there be some consequence for the 101 style abuse of the systems. Even auditing another 10,000 individuals, 200 additional executives - the number of folks putting money offshore - with full disclosure now available through leaked documents and information sharing, there should be 1000's of cases to chase this stuff down, not just voluntary disclosure programs.

cdiddy2 9y ago

we have different compliance tiered markets. they are the hell holes known as the OTC. with tiers like QX/QB/Pink. lots of risk there

syshum 9y ago

>>>Most such rules are in place because slimebags abused the system While true it was those same "slimebags" that wrote the rules. They made the system complex and convoluted so they could legally do everything they were doing before only now with a full government liability shield protecting them.