Deceptive title. No answer, just magical thinking about people ignoring their incentives. Here’s an idea, not a great one, but something: torts and bonds. Regu

Deceptive title. No answer, just magical thinking about people ignoring their incentives. Here’s an idea, not a great one, but something: torts and bonds. Regulators specify public-interest outcomes and associated monetary values, which are the bonding requirements. Then public interest lawyers sue for a maximum of the existing bond on the grounds of any violation of the public interest outcomes. The plaintiff would be required to pay the the non-refundable public cost of the court case. It is important these court cases would not be based on intent or following standards, or technical merit; they are strictly about outcomes defined and valued by the bond. This would push technical standards and project evaluation into the insurance industry, and the finance industry would select their tolerable level of innovation and risk in each bonding pool. It is important here that the bonds be actual dollars held in trust, and not just letters of credit, and additionally, that no government agency provides finance or insurance in any form. It would have the obvious side-effect of requiring a lot of up-front capital to do anything, and tying up a lot of capital, which would have a huge range of risk, and therefore interest rates, as a project amortizes out its tort risk over time. The bonds would only be recoverable by torts, successful decommission of the project, or more realistically, subsidizing renewal of the project. The macroeconomic effect would be deflationary as the bonds would basically be a burn pit for dollars, but this would open up opportunities for more efficient public funding through central bank bond purchases and the elimination of tax burden. It would also massively reduce the public burden of regulation and administration, especially as the tort fees would pay for it. I think it would also promote localization of investment, as the bonding capital would be a high-yield investable asset most appropriately held or rejected by the people knowledgeable and/or responsible for the quality of the result, which is the community itself. Okay, this is Hacker News, so, please go ahead and tear it apart.