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All of these are solvable problems. 1. Regulators lack visibility? Give them investigatory powers. 2. Regulators can't predict the next crisis? Maybe with big

All of these are solvable problems. 1. Regulators lack visibility? Give them investigatory powers. 2. Regulators can't predict the next crisis? Maybe with bigger budgets they would have higher quality employees. All the talent works for the hedge funds who pay them literally hundreds of times more. If the person being regulated makes $1M/year the regulator needs more pay than that or there will be talent asymmetry. Obviously, the key issue here is that the financial sector gets paid way too much, way more than the value it produces. The profits are based on a rigged financial system. 3. Regulators appointed by politicians due to democracy? Cancel democracy and implement meritocracy. Require positions of power to be filled by civil servants with proven skill who have to pass tests, rather than politicians elected by the stupid hordes. If the masses are going to elect people that are provably useless, the masses should be stripped of their voting privileges for their own good. Democracy is not a panacea. Meritocracy is better. 4. Banks upset that the gov causes them to fail? Nationalize the fucking banks, duh. Banking is not high tech and should not be high tech. It should be a public utility that is the most conservatively run thing in the economy. Banks should be separated from investment entirely. Government should invest in high tech but only using the judgment of highly qualified meritocrats with proven knowledge elected by their specialist peers to oversee government investment within that specialty. Private investors should have no connection to banking. The root of all social problems is the fact that the most qualified and knowledgable academics and technologists have zero political power, while Chrstian pseudo-preachers hold all of it. Intelligent people (e.g. Those on hacker news) should be pushing technocracy and meritocracy and disempowerment of the idiot hordes who don't even know how to act in their own self-interet.

smsm42 14y ago
1. They should know what to investigate. In most cases, they don't until it's too late. Amount of financial transactions in average bank is tremendous, and unless you know exactly what to look for it's beyond shadow of possibility to make sense of all of this data and see if there's any problem somewhere there. You'd need regulatory agencies with personnel 10 times more than whole personnel of all banks. Who'd pay for that? 2. It's not a question of budgets. Somehow some people got the idea money is all-powerful and enough money solves any problem. That's BS. Nobody knows that. And yes, bankers don't know that too - do you think they enjoy being nearly bankrupt? If they could properly predict such things, they would. They can't, however, so instead they do what they can - dance on the line as long as they can and cry for help when the time comes. 3. Yeah, right. And who will be determining "merits", you? No, thanks. I'd rathe take my chance with the stupid hordes - at least they are not so swollen with self-importance as to deny everybody who disagrees with them basic human rights of self-rule and control over their own destiny. All these arguments that some people should be slaves "for their own good" and have no rights except the right to be ruled by kind masters - we are way past that. Sorry, those times won't return, abandon that dream. 4. Nationalized industries work really great, duh. Of course, being controlled by the state gives people superpowers, so industry that was badly managed and corrupt as private, of course will become clean and well-managed as government enterprise. After all, government enterprises are universally known for their excellent management and total lack of corruption, especially when it comes to managing billions of dollars. Duh. >> The root of all social problems is the fact that the most qualified and knowledgable academics and technologists have zero political power, while Chrstian pseudo-preachers hold all of it. This is completely stupid and false. The social problems have multiple roots, and very little of them have anything to do with technologists and academics having little power. Academics, technologists and social engineers of all kids have huge powers and access to enormous budgets and overwhelming regulatory powers. Most of their social engineering enterprises, however, meet with disastrous results, exactly because every complex problem has cheap, obvious, easy to understand wrong solution. And people like you grab at it and yell "oh, that's simple, let's nationalize all banks and appoint more bureaucrats to run financial industry, that would guarantee us eternal prosperity". No, it won't, sorry. The "idiots" are acting exactly in their self-interest when they are ignoring advice like yours - because what you are advising is a recipe for disaster and this was proven by history many times. Unfortunately, they don't always do that - sometimes the simple wrong solution is too tempting. They - we - always pay dearly for that.
- forensic 14y ago
  Deregulation is a recipe for disaster. Using the scientific method, reason, and intelligence in government is the only way good governments have ever happened. You sound like one of those people who wants to abolish all government, meaning that corporations become the new government and we have feudalism. Bad idea. Systems are never perfect but intelligent systems are still better than having NO system. Which is what extreme rightwingers and anarchists such as yourself are actually advocating. Deregulation caused the crisis and many people saw it coming. Bankers didn't lose money, it was the public who lost money. Bankers made record bonuses before and after the crisis and the top guys all had record golden parachutes. You're a clueless tea partier.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  A stable, regulated banking regime was in place in the United States until the 1980's and 1990's. The 80's saw the results of "innovation" in the financial sector through the implosion of thousands of savings & loan institutions. We didn't adopt our current laissez faire regime of "bankers gone wild" until the late 90's. My memory may be foggy, but I don't recall the period of 1945-1999 as some sort of socialist nightmare for the United States. Most people think of this era as a golden age. Regulation doesn't mean nationalization. It means that you put rules in place to do things like eliminate practices the fundamentally place the bank at odds with their customers. Things like using the customer deposits to make multi-billion dollar gambles (JP Morgan Chase, MF Global). Or subject the firm to tend of billions of dollars worth of liability that the firm is unable to make good on (AIG). Or commit outright fraud (Countrywide, Washington Mutual, Barclays, etc). I don't work in the financial industry, so the normal laws of business apply. If I systematically broke internal controls and rigged KPIs to achieve the maximum bonus compensation possible for me, I'd be investigated, terminated and likely prosecuted. Why shouldn't the guy managing my money have the same accountability?
  - smsm42 14y ago
    If you call current situation in financial industry laissez faire you obviously have no idea what these words mean. Yes, there was some deregulation in 2000s, but there was still huge amount of regulation and government control over the financial industry. None of these controllers foresaw the crisis of 2008, none of them objected to subprime mortgage industry - actually, most of the politicians sung praise to raising home values, better access to homewonership for the poor, and upcoming prosperity for all, and pressed the banks into doing more to help the poor take the loans to get on the property train. Check out this book, promising ever-rising home prises in 2005: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385514344 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385514344 Now check out the glowing reviews of this book, quoted on the same page, by no other than chiefs of Federal Reserve and Fannie Mae. You are telling me the problems happened because guys like these didn't have enough power? I've got a nice bridge for sale in Brooklin, are you interested? >> Regulation doesn't mean nationalization. For the guy on whose post I was responding it definitely does. Not only nationalization, but also removing democracy and rights of self-rule for everybody but people having enough of some "merit", which I suspect he assumes himself to possess in abundance. I am glad the problem with such suggestions is obvious for you.

smsm42 14y ago

1. They should know what to investigate. In most cases, they don't until it's too late. Amount of financial transactions in average bank is tremendous, and unless you know exactly what to look for it's beyond shadow of possibility to make sense of all of this data and see if there's any problem somewhere there. You'd need regulatory agencies with personnel 10 times more than whole personnel of all banks. Who'd pay for that? 2. It's not a question of budgets. Somehow some people got the idea money is all-powerful and enough money solves any problem. That's BS. Nobody knows that. And yes, bankers don't know that too - do you think they enjoy being nearly bankrupt? If they could properly predict such things, they would. They can't, however, so instead they do what they can - dance on the line as long as they can and cry for help when the time comes. 3. Yeah, right. And who will be determining "merits", you? No, thanks. I'd rathe take my chance with the stupid hordes - at least they are not so swollen with self-importance as to deny everybody who disagrees with them basic human rights of self-rule and control over their own destiny. All these arguments that some people should be slaves "for their own good" and have no rights except the right to be ruled by kind masters - we are way past that. Sorry, those times won't return, abandon that dream. 4. Nationalized industries work really great, duh. Of course, being controlled by the state gives people superpowers, so industry that was badly managed and corrupt as private, of course will become clean and well-managed as government enterprise. After all, government enterprises are universally known for their excellent management and total lack of corruption, especially when it comes to managing billions of dollars. Duh. >> The root of all social problems is the fact that the most qualified and knowledgable academics and technologists have zero political power, while Chrstian pseudo-preachers hold all of it. This is completely stupid and false. The social problems have multiple roots, and very little of them have anything to do with technologists and academics having little power. Academics, technologists and social engineers of all kids have huge powers and access to enormous budgets and overwhelming regulatory powers. Most of their social engineering enterprises, however, meet with disastrous results, exactly because every complex problem has cheap, obvious, easy to understand wrong solution. And people like you grab at it and yell "oh, that's simple, let's nationalize all banks and appoint more bureaucrats to run financial industry, that would guarantee us eternal prosperity". No, it won't, sorry. The "idiots" are acting exactly in their self-interest when they are ignoring advice like yours - because what you are advising is a recipe for disaster and this was proven by history many times. Unfortunately, they don't always do that - sometimes the simple wrong solution is too tempting. They - we - always pay dearly for that.

forensic 14y ago
Deregulation is a recipe for disaster. Using the scientific method, reason, and intelligence in government is the only way good governments have ever happened. You sound like one of those people who wants to abolish all government, meaning that corporations become the new government and we have feudalism. Bad idea. Systems are never perfect but intelligent systems are still better than having NO system. Which is what extreme rightwingers and anarchists such as yourself are actually advocating. Deregulation caused the crisis and many people saw it coming. Bankers didn't lose money, it was the public who lost money. Bankers made record bonuses before and after the crisis and the top guys all had record golden parachutes. You're a clueless tea partier.
Spooky23 14y ago
A stable, regulated banking regime was in place in the United States until the 1980's and 1990's. The 80's saw the results of "innovation" in the financial sector through the implosion of thousands of savings & loan institutions. We didn't adopt our current laissez faire regime of "bankers gone wild" until the late 90's. My memory may be foggy, but I don't recall the period of 1945-1999 as some sort of socialist nightmare for the United States. Most people think of this era as a golden age. Regulation doesn't mean nationalization. It means that you put rules in place to do things like eliminate practices the fundamentally place the bank at odds with their customers. Things like using the customer deposits to make multi-billion dollar gambles (JP Morgan Chase, MF Global). Or subject the firm to tend of billions of dollars worth of liability that the firm is unable to make good on (AIG). Or commit outright fraud (Countrywide, Washington Mutual, Barclays, etc). I don't work in the financial industry, so the normal laws of business apply. If I systematically broke internal controls and rigged KPIs to achieve the maximum bonus compensation possible for me, I'd be investigated, terminated and likely prosecuted. Why shouldn't the guy managing my money have the same accountability?
- smsm42 14y ago
  If you call current situation in financial industry laissez faire you obviously have no idea what these words mean. Yes, there was some deregulation in 2000s, but there was still huge amount of regulation and government control over the financial industry. None of these controllers foresaw the crisis of 2008, none of them objected to subprime mortgage industry - actually, most of the politicians sung praise to raising home values, better access to homewonership for the poor, and upcoming prosperity for all, and pressed the banks into doing more to help the poor take the loans to get on the property train. Check out this book, promising ever-rising home prises in 2005: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385514344 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385514344 Now check out the glowing reviews of this book, quoted on the same page, by no other than chiefs of Federal Reserve and Fannie Mae. You are telling me the problems happened because guys like these didn't have enough power? I've got a nice bridge for sale in Brooklin, are you interested? >> Regulation doesn't mean nationalization. For the guy on whose post I was responding it definitely does. Not only nationalization, but also removing democracy and rights of self-rule for everybody but people having enough of some "merit", which I suspect he assumes himself to possess in abundance. I am glad the problem with such suggestions is obvious for you.