4 ms·

Gotta love deregulation. How many institutions are left? Any? CFPB, EPA, HUD, Interior are all run by people that don’t believe in their missions. It’s all

by dd36 7y ago

Gotta love deregulation. How many institutions are left? Any? CFPB, EPA, HUD, Interior are all run by people that don’t believe in their missions. It’s all about undermining from inside. Who protects the public when private rights of collective action are forbidden by arbitration agreements and the government has been captured by private interests?

badhombrehn 7y ago
The problem is that only Boeing is left in the US. Lockheed, Douglas, General Dynamics are all out of manufacturing civil airplanes. It's the lack of free market (the decision between Boeing and Airbus is most often a political one), not the lack of regulation that led to this. Boeing is too big to fail now. Regulators are always stupid, but free market is smart.
CamperBob2 7y ago
Gotta love deregulation. Remind me, when's the last time we had a major fatality incident in the US domestic passenger airline business? And how does that compare with the prevailing state of affairs before "deregulation?" Difficulty: answer with numbers, please, rather than insults, downvotes, or political attacks.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Colgan Air 2407 was in 2009. Comair 5191 was 2006. Both, like most airplane crashes, were substantially pilot error. (Both of these were primarily pilot error.) Weather forecasting has gotten much better in the years since deregulation. We’ve also been operating a mostly-jet fleet, which has larger inherent performance margins than the turboprops (and, worse, pistons) before them. And we have decades of experience about how pilots kill airplanes to inform operations and regulations. It’s not clear that airfare deregulation either hurt nor helped airline safety in the US. US-flag air carrier ops are extraordinarily safe and I believe the FAA makes a positive contribution to that outcome.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > Remind me, when's the last time we had a major fatality incident in the US domestic passenger airline business? Doesn't really matter much. Incidents in aviation that can happen on continent X could usually have happened on any continent.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    A good counterexample: in the Lion Air case, at least one planeload of passengers came within a hair's-breadth of disaster prior to the fatal crash. The pilots figured out what to do in time, in part because a third pilot was available to RTFM while the other two flew the airplane. However, that crew not only didn't take any action to remove the aircraft from service, they apparently didn't even bother to leave a Post-It note on the dashboard. The regulations we have in place here in the US -- to say nothing of our airlines' own policies -- would have kept that aircraft grounded until the problem was diagnosed and addressed.
    - salawat 7y ago
      He didn't RTFM actually. They performed Crew Resource Management, and he was able to focus his attention on controls the other two pilots didn't have time to manage. Hence noticing the trim wheels running amok.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        Good point, I was just echoing some of the earliest news accounts there. Those stories came out before it became apparent that the flight manuals didn't actually have much useful information on the subject.
acidburnNSA 7y ago
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing just fine in their function.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  True, but I also doubt we'll see new nuclear facilities in the US any time soon.
  - an_account_name 7y ago
    Some of these applications have been withdrawn, but there are in fact some in flight. https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-ma...
    - davidkuhta 7y ago
      > In flight Hopefully, their planes don't need MCAS ;)
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        I don't know - a lot of those nuclear plant applications seem to stall ;)
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  [Citation needed]
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
EPA has been a joke for at least two, I want to say three, administrations now. Now they're just a joke that doesn't impede business quite so much.
- guelo 7y ago
  Explain. What about it has made it a joke?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Its head, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal lawyer. That tells you all you need to know. Bit separately, I know people in DC who work in this field and they say the same thing.
erichocean 7y ago
> Gotta love deregulation. I dunno, I see it as the opposite: regulation (apparently) made it impossible to just train pilots on this one new feature, instead requiring a full recertification of both the airframe and the pilots, which is incredibly expensive and unnecessary relative to what was actually required to save lives. So one way of looking at is is: regulation caused perverse incentives that ultimately got people killed.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  That’s such a roundabout way of thinking that I’m not sure whether you believe it yourself. You’re basically saying that because shitty people don’t want to follow safety regulations we shouldn’t have them.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    You should always consider incentives when thinking about regulations. Especially roundabout, second and third order consequences. Those are the ones that get you. Having safety in mind doesn't make something unambiguously good, fit for purpose, or free of net-negative consequences. The specific content of rule determines that.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  A different way to look at this is: does this particular perverse incentive justify reduced regulation so that it can’t happen anymore. Even if your assessment is valid, you’d likely be throwing away the baby with the bath water if you’d cut regulation to avoid it.
  - erichocean 7y ago
    I would think it would justify additional regulations to allow for something like "upgrades" to existing certifications instead of the binary (full recertification|pretend plane is identical) standard we appear to have today that resulted in the 737 Max tragedy. Is that less regulation? More regulation? I don't know, and I doubt it matters if it's "less" or "more" since the goal is fewer dead people, not passing an ideological Turing test.

by dd36 7y ago

badhombrehn 7y ago

The problem is that only Boeing is left in the US. Lockheed, Douglas, General Dynamics are all out of manufacturing civil airplanes. It's the lack of free market (the decision between Boeing and Airbus is most often a political one), not the lack of regulation that led to this. Boeing is too big to fail now. Regulators are always stupid, but free market is smart.

CamperBob2 7y ago

Gotta love deregulation. Remind me, when's the last time we had a major fatality incident in the US domestic passenger airline business? And how does that compare with the prevailing state of affairs before "deregulation?" Difficulty: answer with numbers, please, rather than insults, downvotes, or political attacks.

sokoloff 7y ago
Colgan Air 2407 was in 2009. Comair 5191 was 2006. Both, like most airplane crashes, were substantially pilot error. (Both of these were primarily pilot error.) Weather forecasting has gotten much better in the years since deregulation. We’ve also been operating a mostly-jet fleet, which has larger inherent performance margins than the turboprops (and, worse, pistons) before them. And we have decades of experience about how pilots kill airplanes to inform operations and regulations. It’s not clear that airfare deregulation either hurt nor helped airline safety in the US. US-flag air carrier ops are extraordinarily safe and I believe the FAA makes a positive contribution to that outcome.
blattimwind 7y ago
> Remind me, when's the last time we had a major fatality incident in the US domestic passenger airline business? Doesn't really matter much. Incidents in aviation that can happen on continent X could usually have happened on any continent.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  A good counterexample: in the Lion Air case, at least one planeload of passengers came within a hair's-breadth of disaster prior to the fatal crash. The pilots figured out what to do in time, in part because a third pilot was available to RTFM while the other two flew the airplane. However, that crew not only didn't take any action to remove the aircraft from service, they apparently didn't even bother to leave a Post-It note on the dashboard. The regulations we have in place here in the US -- to say nothing of our airlines' own policies -- would have kept that aircraft grounded until the problem was diagnosed and addressed.
  - salawat 7y ago
    He didn't RTFM actually. They performed Crew Resource Management, and he was able to focus his attention on controls the other two pilots didn't have time to manage. Hence noticing the trim wheels running amok.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Good point, I was just echoing some of the earliest news accounts there. Those stories came out before it became apparent that the flight manuals didn't actually have much useful information on the subject.

acidburnNSA 7y ago

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing just fine in their function.

djsumdog 7y ago
True, but I also doubt we'll see new nuclear facilities in the US any time soon.
- an_account_name 7y ago
  Some of these applications have been withdrawn, but there are in fact some in flight. https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-ma...
  - davidkuhta 7y ago
    > In flight Hopefully, their planes don't need MCAS ;)
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      I don't know - a lot of those nuclear plant applications seem to stall ;)
8bitsrule 7y ago
[Citation needed]

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

EPA has been a joke for at least two, I want to say three, administrations now. Now they're just a joke that doesn't impede business quite so much.

guelo 7y ago
Explain. What about it has made it a joke?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Its head, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal lawyer. That tells you all you need to know. Bit separately, I know people in DC who work in this field and they say the same thing.

erichocean 7y ago

> Gotta love deregulation. I dunno, I see it as the opposite: regulation (apparently) made it impossible to just train pilots on this one new feature, instead requiring a full recertification of both the airframe and the pilots, which is incredibly expensive and unnecessary relative to what was actually required to save lives. So one way of looking at is is: regulation caused perverse incentives that ultimately got people killed.

Aeolun 7y ago
That’s such a roundabout way of thinking that I’m not sure whether you believe it yourself. You’re basically saying that because shitty people don’t want to follow safety regulations we shouldn’t have them.
- closeparen 7y ago
  You should always consider incentives when thinking about regulations. Especially roundabout, second and third order consequences. Those are the ones that get you. Having safety in mind doesn't make something unambiguously good, fit for purpose, or free of net-negative consequences. The specific content of rule determines that.
TomVDB 7y ago
A different way to look at this is: does this particular perverse incentive justify reduced regulation so that it can’t happen anymore. Even if your assessment is valid, you’d likely be throwing away the baby with the bath water if you’d cut regulation to avoid it.
- erichocean 7y ago
  I would think it would justify additional regulations to allow for something like "upgrades" to existing certifications instead of the binary (full recertification|pretend plane is identical) standard we appear to have today that resulted in the 737 Max tragedy. Is that less regulation? More regulation? I don't know, and I doubt it matters if it's "less" or "more" since the goal is fewer dead people, not passing an ideological Turing test.