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When these regulators stop "retiring" to cushy jobs in the industry, I'll believe it's the politicians and not the regulators openly taking bribes in the form o
by merpnderp 7y ago
When these regulators stop "retiring" to cushy jobs in the industry, I'll believe it's the politicians and not the regulators openly taking bribes in the form of future "jobs".
An easy fix would be for congress to pass a law preventing regulators from working in the industry they regulated, but then the politicians wouldn't also receive those same cushy "jobs".
- armenarmen 7y agoWasn’t there talk earlier this year of putting a 10 year delay on retired government officials taking these lobbying jobs? Did anything come from that?
- ceejayoz 7y agoObama and Trump both instituted five year bans. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13770) Unfortunately, they're largely ignored via waivers: https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15723994/trump-ethics-waivers https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15723994/trump-ethics-waivers
- swiley 7y agoThat sounds like it would prevent competent people from regulating. Better would be to prosecute people who conspire to harm others by intentionally distorting policy. That's how literally all the other legal stuff seems to work.
- merpnderp 7y agoI like it, but the conspiracy would be almost always impossible to prove. People in these positions don't 'conspire', they say "wouldn't it be nice" to a golfing buddy, who then does what they can to make it happen.
- openasocket 7y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, keep in mind it's a little more complicated than that. People who work on some category of regulations can only find relevant work in the government or in that sector of industry. Making it impossible to move from the government to an industry job effectively traps people for life in their one job unless they change careers. As a concrete example, my fiance is a lawyer working in environmental policy. She's worked for the EPA and for various environmental justice groups because she went with whatever jobs were available in her field, and that wouldn't be possible with your proposed change.
- travisporter 7y agoYou can argue this prevents people like FCC's Wheeler, but the current administration has several examples refuting this. Is there no way that you can still work in the field without being able to influence policy?
- markdown 7y ago> Making it impossible to move from the government to an industry job effectively traps people for life in their one job unless they change careers. And?
- asdf21 7y agoAnd... that's an ignorant, facile and unenforceable policy.
- mattkrause 7y agoAnd it’ll be necessary to either a) pay exorbitant salaries for these jobs to compensate for what is effectively an incredibly broad non-compete or b) hire idiots that can’t get jobs anywhere else.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoThere exist tertiary jobs that employ the same skillsets without the danger of pervasive incentives. No one minds if a EPA regulator that does agriculture cases his whole career then take a lawyer job in the fishing or mining industry. It's when that person drops immediately into a legal career at Monsanto that people start seeing a conflict of interests.
- asdf21 7y ago"Government isn't working well! Easy fix, what we need is more government." Smart thinking over here.
- mikestew 7y ago"We've cut budgets such that there aren't enough regulators to keep tabs on things, while J&J bullshits consumers, and your solution is more government?" Yes, that is exactly my solution. Do you have suggestions?
- asdf21 7y agoPrivatization is the solution to regulatory capture. Larger government just creates more regulations to capture.