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Unfortunately there are so many inaccuracies in your comment that almost every sentence is false or embeds an erroneous assumption. I don't have the time to go

• rayiner 14y ago
  > Jaw-droppingly ahistorical. The Wild West was not characterized by regulation! What is the flaw in your reading comprehension? I didn't say "everything" I said "everything" commercial worth regulating. Central to my point is the changing scope and nature of the American economy, which seems to go completely over your head in the paragraphs that follow. > For one thing, the de facto repeal of the Tenth Amendment and expansion of the Commerce Clause limiting the federal government had not yet happened in the early US. The 10th amendment never created limits to the exercise of federal power. All it says is that in the cession of powers by the states represented by the Constitutional agreement, the states retained those they hadn't ceded. If a federal action can, e.g., be justified by any other clause in the Constitution, it is by definition one of the powers that have been ceded. There has also been no real expansion of the Commerce Clause (Wickard aside--which is best understood as a World War II case). The definition of the Commerce Power post-Lopez is more or less the same as it was defined in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824. What's changed is the nature of the economy. > America's defining characteristic from 1776 to 1860 or so was extraordinarily low levels of government intervention America's defining characteristic from 1776 to 1860 was extraordinarily low levels of commercial activity that affected any significant number of people. The vast majority of the country was engaged in agrarian activities--what economists would today call the "household economy." What commercial activity that did exist was regulated. Trade via navigable waterways and international trade were the major types of commercial activity that existed, and they were regulated by the federal government from the beginning. Joint stock companies were charted and regulated by the states from before the time of the founding. The government (between the federal and state governments), taxed what was important at the time: land, international trade, trade in various goods people couldn't make for themselves: sugar, etc. > You do also realize that there wasn't even an income tax till 1913 You also realize that the income tax as it's currently defined wouldn't even reach most of the economic activity that existed in early America? Income taxes reach market transactions, but before industrialization people didn't depend solely on the market for their daily necessities like we do today. Even today, to the extent that production and consumption happen within a household, no "income" accrues to be taxed. What's happened isn't so much that th > Can the SEC be trusted to regulate itself? It doesn't have to be. It's a federal agency, answerable to elected officials. > You do know what career status is, right? Do you know what career status is? It allows you to re-enter federal service without taking the necessary civil service exams, and allows you to apply for internal job openings even if you're not currently working with the government. It doesn't do any of the things you claim it does. > We can trust the SEC to harass Bitcoin, Paypal, and startups. We can also trust the SEC to be bribed or captured out of “regulating” the financial markets. The SEC, like most agencies, exists as a conservative force. They want to preserve the status quo until new things have proven themselves. This is not a bad thing. > Given the events of the last five years, it is only extraordinary ignorance or chutzpah that could lead someone to claim that the SEC protects investors. It's incredible how people who hold fringe minority viewpoints can convince themselves that everyone else is either ignorant or lying. > No. This is just a rehash of the conventional wisdom. Without FDR’s regulatory state we would ostensibly be victims of those evil businesses, as we are incapable of judging product quality on our own. Information asymmetries, negative externalities, etc, aren't just things I made up. They're real economic concepts and are the reason regulatory states exist. I don't feel compelled to argue with you on positions supported by the large majority of economists in the field. > Only someone who either (a) profits from the complexity of the regulatory state or (b) is completely unfamiliar with its workings could fail to be appalled by the level of corruption and incompetence that is its defining characteristic. I got news for you: we all profit from the existence of the regulatory state. My father left a country that had no regulation. It was a libertarian paradise! Get yourself out in the rural areas and pretty much everyone will leave you alone. It sucked. I challenge you to go live in one of these places that has little to no regulation. If you can't find one that is that way but also has an acceptably high standard of living for someone coming from the states, I'll assert that it's not a coincidence.
  • temphn 14y ago
    Do you know what career status is? It allows you to re- enter federal service without taking the necessary civil service exams, and allows you to apply for internal job openings even if you're not currently working with the government. It doesn't do any of the things you claim it does. Career status means lifetime tenure. It also means (as you acknowledge) you can work three years at the federal government, leave, and always come back to get a fedguv job without competitive examination, even after 25 years out of the service. This is a bug, not a feature - after decades out of a job, federal law nevertheless stipulates that you must be rehired without a serious interview: http://www.hhs.gov/careers/jobs/keyterms/index.html http://www.hhs.gov/careers/jobs/keyterms/index.html After serving three years of substantially continuous creditable service, a career conditional employee becomes a career employee and gains career tenure. Employees with career tenure have permanent reinstatement eligibility and may be considered for positions without having to take another competitive civil service examination. As for the fact of lifetime employment, don't take my word for it; note the distinction here between "at-will" (characteristic of the private sector) and "career" (in the federal government): http://www.federalhandbooks.com/fedbooks/Personnel.pdf http://www.federalhandbooks.com/fedbooks/Personnel.pdf As an employer, the Federal government is unique. In the private sector, there are generally two types of “appointments” – the “at will” appointment and the “contract” appointment. The vast majority of private sector employees hired by a company or firm are hired as “at will” employees. ... Appointments within the Federal sector, however, are a little more complex. When hiring a new employee, a Federal department or agency must classify the employee’s appointment as “career,” “career conditional,” “temporary,” or “term.” And what does "career" mean? Permanent employees are generally hired into the Federal government under a career-conditional appointment. A career-conditional employee must complete three years of substantially continuous service before becoming a full career employee. This 3-year period is used to determine whether or not the Government is able to offer the employee a career. It means "tenure": Service Requirement for Career Tenure An employee must have 3 years of substantially continuous creditable service to become a career employee, i.e. obtain career tenure. Ever heard of the Douglas Factors, CFR Part 432, or CFR Part 752? These basically make it impossible to fire someone as you need to (a) prepare a "Proposal Notice to Remove", (b) wait 90 days or more for the employee's response, and (c) are subject to having your firing decision "mitigated" by the Douglas Factors (i.e. overturned). This doesn't include (d) the substantial ostracism you yourself will face within the federal government for the capital crime of trying to actually fire a tenured employee. Proposal Notice to Remove Each agency has a "culture" that defines the amount of information and documentation that will go into a proposal notice. At a minimum, your notice will state which regulation the action is being taken under, specify what critical performance element(s) the employee failed to meet, cite the evidence of unacceptable performance, and discuss the opportunity period (or the lack of one). The notice will also explain to the employee the time allowed for a written and/or oral response. Ask your human resources specialist for some samples of other performance- based notices to get a sense of what your agency requires. The regulations require that an employee receive a decision in Part 432 actions within 30 days of the expiration of the 30-day notice period. This provision automatically gives you a 60-day period of time in which to work. Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management has issued regulations that give agencies the discretion to extend the initial 30- day notice period by another 30 days, so you are actually working within a 90-day timeframe. However, there are always those situations where even more time will be needed, perhaps because the employee has asked for a lengthy extension to prepare a response or the deciding official cannot gather and analyze all the information needed within the 90 days allowed. 5 CFR Part 432 lists six reasons that commonly cause delay and allows agencies to extend the notice period if those conditions exist. Wow, six reasons that "commonly cause delay" and 90 days for the employee to "respond" when you try to terminate them. That response invariably involves mitigation via the Douglas Factors: However, reduction in the agency-selected penalty, known as mitigation, is a possibility in any action taken under Part 752. Therefore, you will need to explain in any decision notice, and possibly in a proposal notice as well, what factors led you to believe that your chosen action (suspension, demotion, or removal) was the right one. Most supervisors who have taken any kind of adverse action against an employee have been told about the Douglas factors. This is a reference to a decision by the Merit Systems Protection Board that listed 12 factors that might be taken into consideration when deciding on the appropriate penalty in any adverse action. Your human resources office will be able to provide you with a copy of these factors. And your HR office will also tell you that the Douglas Factors make it essentially impossible to fire someone. So that SEC bureaucrat has lifetime employment while they watch porn. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/new_sec_porn_bust_details_rele_1.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/new_sec... None of the Securities and Exchange Commission employees caught using government computers to view pornographic images has been fired, according to the agency. I give you the SEC, ladies and gentlemen! Perhaps now you may start to realize that the SEC is just safety theater, that no one can "protect" you from bad investments other than yourself. They're real economic concepts and are the reason regulatory states exist. The reason regulatory states exist is given by public choice theory. So long as we're talking economists, I give you Nobel Laureates Gordon Tullock, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan. Principal/agent problems and misaligned incentives systematically bedevil all public regulation; only private systems (e.g. Google rankings, eBay reputation, Amazon reviews) actually work. I thought it was important to show that career status does indeed mean tenure, and I don't have time to do this kind of exegesis on all your other statements here, but as for this: we all profit from the existence of the regulatory state No, we don't. The details matter. What fraction of people who think regulations are good in the abstract can name a single federal regulation? How many of them know that regulators can't be fired? How many of them have actually run a business in a regulated industry? Regulatory agencies are solely PR. They are about scaring people into the extraordinarily counterintuitive idea that some guy 3000 miles away in DC who surfs porn at work actually has Warren-Buffett-level judgment about the market, and is protecting you from making bad investments. Think for yourself.