7 ms·

No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten.

No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten. We're witnessing the removal of all of the guardrails, traffic signals, road maintenance crews. The highway patrols have been replaced by organized teams of highwaymen. It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

eru 2y ago
It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books. Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.) I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.
- pineaux 2y ago
  You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.
  - eru 2y ago
    No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation. Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.
    - navane 2y ago
      [dead]
- Epa095 2y ago
  > So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing. Who knows, maybe we are in the middle of the resulting collapse now ;-)
  - eru 2y ago
    Well, that collapse is because of tariffs, not the intricacies of differences in insider trading law.
    - Epa095 2y ago
      I was thinking more that these kind of lax laws allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics in ways which enabled or accelerated the fall. But it it a complicated picture of course, and the further back in the chain of causality we go the harder it it to say anything for real.
      - eru 2y ago
        > [...] allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics [...] That would have been a better world than the one we live in. I'd rather have Romney and Bloomberg etc than the populists we got.
consumer451 2y ago
I recently read someone's comment here stating that "trust is efficient." What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.
- drekipus 2y ago
  Roots of which started way back earlier than 2001 even..
  - consumer451 2y ago
    Personally, I would argue that the corruption afterburner kicked in with Citizens United v. FEC. This was like giving a crack addict a feedback loop which gives them more crack. Of course it was going to end badly. We could discuss many possible points of inflection, but I don't want to dilute the undeniable power of the phrase "trust is efficient." However we got here, whatever one's politics, you cannot argue against that simple phrase, and the tragedy of the loss. ___ just to give credit, it was https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze who turned me on to these three words that have stuck in my head
    - pirate787 2y ago
      Yet Kamala and her supporting PACs had two or three times the funding that Trump had.
      - consumer451 2y ago
        There is no need to get left/right political here. There are two political parties in the USA, and they both hit the feedback loop of $crack. One might have led to low-trust faster than the other, but they are both $crack addicts in the end. Just to be clear as to what this means in politics on the ground... left or right, if you have a political position which disagrees with the biggest money, they will primary you. So, left or right, generally speaking, you only see politicians finally standing up for their morals when they are no longer up for election. The most obvious recent example of this is Mitch McConnell.
astral_drama 2y ago
> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better. If they're getting away with it, they'll do it again. The tariffs were paused for 90 days. The plan is to run the same playbook in 90 days.
- labster 2y ago
  Why do you trust that they will actually wait 90 days to run the same playbook? There’s nothing stopping Trump from reneging on his 90 day tariff pause.
delusional 2y ago
> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better. Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has some trajectory towards "justice" or "prosperity". I don't think that impulse does us justice. Stalin/Lenin could have won. Hitler could have won, Napoleon could have conquered and held. It could just get worse.
- johanvts 2y ago
  Oppression and corruption is expensive. Systems based on them are not going to be competitive in the long run.
  - dachris 2y ago
    That may be the very long run. Taking it strictly, Russia never had real democracy. And they are trying hard to export that model.
    - autobodie 2y ago
      Define "real democracy"
      - Draiken 2y ago
        Like the American one where unelected billionaires control the government and the populace. I always find it so surprising how people really do believe individuals have any real power despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Doesn't get simpler than that. Voting is the circus to distract us so we don't realize how much we're being exploited, while giving a sense of agency that simply does not exist. We can choose but they pick the choices we have.
        autobodie 2y ago
        > It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Precisely.
Almondsetat 2y ago
Capitalism actually thrives where there is only 1 regulation: total transparency. After all, if we go by the classic definition of free market competition we have customers who have perfect knowledge of every product and the products are very similar and etc. etc. Who cares if someone at the WH does insider trading? In a transparent system people would be able to trace back every transaction and realize something is brewing and they could act accordingly.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  > could act accordingly Concretely, what are you thinking of here?
  - Almondsetat 2y ago
    Simply copy their positions. But if everyone's position were available, insider trading wouldn't even exist because it would give the game away
    - notahacker 2y ago
      By the time you copy their positions, they've made their money. In theory of course, them being blatantly and obviously corrupt would hurt them at the ballot box. In practice, this is not really something at moves the needle in American politics.
    - EasyMark 2y ago
      why do you think you would know their positions in time to do anything about it?
      - Almondsetat 2y ago
        I will leave it to big investors with supercomputers connected directly to the exchanges to eat away at the potential profits of even the slightest insider trading activity automatically
- 2y ago

eru 2y ago

It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books. Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.) I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.

pineaux 2y ago
You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.
- eru 2y ago
  No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation. Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.
  - navane 2y ago
    [dead]
Epa095 2y ago
> So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing. Who knows, maybe we are in the middle of the resulting collapse now ;-)
- eru 2y ago
  Well, that collapse is because of tariffs, not the intricacies of differences in insider trading law.
  - Epa095 2y ago
    I was thinking more that these kind of lax laws allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics in ways which enabled or accelerated the fall. But it it a complicated picture of course, and the further back in the chain of causality we go the harder it it to say anything for real.
    - eru 2y ago
      > [...] allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics [...] That would have been a better world than the one we live in. I'd rather have Romney and Bloomberg etc than the populists we got.

consumer451 2y ago

I recently read someone's comment here stating that "trust is efficient." What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.

drekipus 2y ago
Roots of which started way back earlier than 2001 even..
- consumer451 2y ago
  Personally, I would argue that the corruption afterburner kicked in with Citizens United v. FEC. This was like giving a crack addict a feedback loop which gives them more crack. Of course it was going to end badly. We could discuss many possible points of inflection, but I don't want to dilute the undeniable power of the phrase "trust is efficient." However we got here, whatever one's politics, you cannot argue against that simple phrase, and the tragedy of the loss. ___ just to give credit, it was https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze who turned me on to these three words that have stuck in my head
  - pirate787 2y ago
    Yet Kamala and her supporting PACs had two or three times the funding that Trump had.
    - consumer451 2y ago
      There is no need to get left/right political here. There are two political parties in the USA, and they both hit the feedback loop of $crack. One might have led to low-trust faster than the other, but they are both $crack addicts in the end. Just to be clear as to what this means in politics on the ground... left or right, if you have a political position which disagrees with the biggest money, they will primary you. So, left or right, generally speaking, you only see politicians finally standing up for their morals when they are no longer up for election. The most obvious recent example of this is Mitch McConnell.

astral_drama 2y ago

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better. If they're getting away with it, they'll do it again. The tariffs were paused for 90 days. The plan is to run the same playbook in 90 days.

labster 2y ago
Why do you trust that they will actually wait 90 days to run the same playbook? There’s nothing stopping Trump from reneging on his 90 day tariff pause.

delusional 2y ago

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better. Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has some trajectory towards "justice" or "prosperity". I don't think that impulse does us justice. Stalin/Lenin could have won. Hitler could have won, Napoleon could have conquered and held. It could just get worse.

johanvts 2y ago
Oppression and corruption is expensive. Systems based on them are not going to be competitive in the long run.
- dachris 2y ago
  That may be the very long run. Taking it strictly, Russia never had real democracy. And they are trying hard to export that model.
  - autobodie 2y ago
    Define "real democracy"
    - Draiken 2y ago
      Like the American one where unelected billionaires control the government and the populace. I always find it so surprising how people really do believe individuals have any real power despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Doesn't get simpler than that. Voting is the circus to distract us so we don't realize how much we're being exploited, while giving a sense of agency that simply does not exist. We can choose but they pick the choices we have.
      - autobodie 2y ago
        > It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Precisely.

Almondsetat 2y ago

Capitalism actually thrives where there is only 1 regulation: total transparency. After all, if we go by the classic definition of free market competition we have customers who have perfect knowledge of every product and the products are very similar and etc. etc. Who cares if someone at the WH does insider trading? In a transparent system people would be able to trace back every transaction and realize something is brewing and they could act accordingly.

wesselbindt 2y ago
> could act accordingly Concretely, what are you thinking of here?
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  Simply copy their positions. But if everyone's position were available, insider trading wouldn't even exist because it would give the game away
  - notahacker 2y ago
    By the time you copy their positions, they've made their money. In theory of course, them being blatantly and obviously corrupt would hurt them at the ballot box. In practice, this is not really something at moves the needle in American politics.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    why do you think you would know their positions in time to do anything about it?
    - Almondsetat 2y ago
      I will leave it to big investors with supercomputers connected directly to the exchanges to eat away at the potential profits of even the slightest insider trading activity automatically
2y ago