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How would you define gambling? Would it make trading stocks illegal?
by criddell 6mo ago
How would you define gambling? Would it make trading stocks illegal?
- Tangurena2 6mo agoIf it is based on chance, then it is gambling. Until the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, Collateral Debt Obligations were regulated differently in different states. Some said it was insurance, and thus regulated it like insurance. Some said it was gambling and banned it outright. Instead, regulation was handed to a toothless new agency who got little funding for enforcement and the rest of the world got the 2008 financial crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernizatio...
- criddell 6mo ago> If it is based on chance, then it is gambling. Is there much difference between picking a horse at the track or a stock on an exchange?
- triceratops 6mo agoLots of countries have managed to legally define gambling and ban it without making stock trading illegal. Even the US. This isn't some gotcha.
- epistasis 6mo agoThat would require a functioning legislative branch that could pass laws. However a major political program of the past decades has been to gum up Congress and prevent its functioning. There's very limited bandwidth to accomplish legislation, and there's hundreds of good fixes that can't fit through, so I doubt the US will be able to fix this anytime soon, unless there's bigger scandal.
- hrimfaxi 6mo agoThis would make sense if Congress never passed laws. They can and routinely do. That they don't limit their behavior is unsurprising.
- epistasis 6mo agoThe passage of some laws is completely consistent with my description of a dysfunctional system that can not get many good reforms through. Getting some bills passed does not equate to adequate legislative capacity.