thegreekdog wrote:Woodruff wrote:crispybits wrote:Hang on, so self-regulation is the solution to the problem caused because government and big banks are in each others' pockets and the line between bankers and regulators has become blurred? Am I misunderstanding something here or is there some delicious irony being served up?
Well of course, if they were only allowed to make their own rules, they certainly would just do the right thing and they certainly wouldn't collude. Talk about imaginary things...
Yeah, that's kind of the point. They already make their own rules. But instead of 100% of them making their own rules, 2% of them do and then crowd out the remaining 98%. And then they also make sure that your tax dollars allow them to benefit themselves (to your detriment). Essentially, you're paying money to the government so that a handful of banks can write self-interested laws. Much better than free market, right?
Firstly, having quickly proof-read I may be going off into a more generalised tangent here, but that's what this forum is for right?
The solution being that the government steps out and the industry regulates itself seems to be like saying that I should get to decide which laws I will follow as a citizen, and which laws I should be able to choose to ignore simply because I don't like them.
Wouldn't it be better to institute a political system where the profit-seeking sector of society is not allowed to influence the legislative sector of society? Just like we have separation of church and state (I say "we" slightly ironically here coming from the UK) wouldn't a more elegant solution to have separation of markets and state. The political parties could be funded enough from taxes to advertise their policies at election times, and would certainly still gain significant media coverage during those times, and politicians and political parties could be outright banned from accepting external contributions to their funds from any other group.
Of course, for this to happen the politicians would have to vote for it, and that would be like turkeys voting for christmas (or thanksgiving - I dunno if you yanks eat turkey at christmas as universally as we do). It's not going to happen. But while we're talking about ideological systems rather than practical ones then I for one would certainly favour a society where the legislative and judiciary branches of the system are kept completely separate from the commercial, the religious, and all other sectors, and should be concentrating only on making laws that provide the most benefit to the country as a whole.
In effect, and I haven't really thought this out as much as I'd like to have despite it being a seed in my mind for some time, I'd like a 2 part government. The legislative and judiciary, concentrated on ensuring the rules are in place for a just, fair and free society, and the economic, infrastructure and welfare branch concentrated on ensuring that the economy is as efficient as possible and that everyone receives certain basic services like education and healthcare (both up to a certain level), plus the road and rail networks and power and water systems and that sort of stuff is all up to scratch.
That doesn't necessarily mean big government either, you could still have a 2 part small government system, but keep the two parts separate, and keep both separate from any outside influence except the democratic influence of politicians having to do a good job to get themselves re-elected every 4-5 years by the public. There is some crossover between the two parts, but that can be dealt with by installing vetos based on certain principles.
I'll leave it there though my mind is going off into a massive rambling flow about how it can all work, but the point is that unless you can honestly say that you and everyone you know, if given the choice to obey or disobey any law you like, would always choose to follow the course of action that is in the interests of widder society, rather than just yourself, then I honestly don't think self-regulation and free market forces are the solution to every problem.