171–180 of 216 posts
A bit of a red scare here. All the time I was reading I was led to assume that companies like PayPal and Square (imperative mechanisms for freelance these days) were to be affected, ultimately though, this was dismissed toward the end. I can understand the frustration here, but like a lot of people are saying, those are the rules. Also, for the FaceCash folks, if you intend to disrupt the financial industry in any fa…
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Government regulation is in just about every case either not needed at all or better provided through non-coercive institutions. Since government innovates more slowly than private industries, government regulation tends to become outdated, going from common-sense prudence to arbitrary burden on innovation. For example, right now the Mississippi River in the US is flooding, destroying many homes. This is a huge loss…
That's an interesting thesis, but can you name one good building material that you can't actually use to build a house? People talk about regulation in the US like it's hindering any form of innovation, but there is surprisingly little terrible regulation that's actually enforced. Which is not to say you can't point to regulation that harms individuals but rather it's much harder to find things that harm society over…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKH0qoaXR88 Discusses how building codes hinder new and "natural" building methods. In particular, the speaker mentions that older codes have failed to keep up with better techniques for strawbale building.
The deeper issue is not whether new materials can be used to meet code requirements, but whether new ideas of what constitutes a safe dwelling are allowed. Building codes are based on assumptions about what a dwelling should be like. For example, the floor should be relatively stiff. If a floor is too bouncy, it won't meet code even if it's strong enough to support the weight. Walls can't be too flimsy. The idea of a house that just safely collapses in a windstorm or floats away in a flood is, I suspect, outside of most building codes' conception of a safe building. The code focuses on the idea of a strong, permanent structure that will resist nature's forces. If houses were plants, the code would only recognize big trees. However, there are also grasses, which much cheaper to produce and also resistant to nature's forces in their own way (they bend). Yet building codes don't recognize structures that are inspired by grasses, only big immovable trees.
I don't know if grass-like houses are a good idea or not, but I'm sure that if we expand our thinking we can come up with better shelters. The problem is that it's hard to innovate and government regulation only tends to make it harder.
Clearly financial transactions have provided a means for the state to both detect and to a lesser degree mitigate criminal activity. The phrase 'follow the money' works because such activities are at their heart economic in nature (trying to enrich the criminals) and understanding the path to that enrichment often allows law enforcement to disassemble the criminal enterprise behind it.
That being said, I would not be the least bit surprised (although I did not read through any floor debate if there was any) if the people who voted for this law did so believing that they were addressing a great threat to society, which is the proliferation of payment processors which are not accountable to the state for tracking or even reporting their transactions in any form.
That does cut into 'innovation' as thinkcomp points out but it doesn't preclude it. It changes the conversation from 'build it and see what works' to something more along the lines of a slow plod from idea to implementation while bringing legislators and law enforement along. The bad news is that criminals are motivated to stay ahead of 'the system's abilty to track their money, consumers need a value proposition and a trial period before they switch so adoption rates are probably (not data driven, just intuition here) lower.
Perhaps the next innovation is a payment processing company that provides the regulatory shield for innovative sub companies.
[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_15517816
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I like the argument that says that when things are good, they are acting like private companies, but when they're bad, they're acting like governments; ergo, private companies good, governments bad. Can we officially acknowledge that this part of the thread --- which is notionally about bonding requirements for money transfer companies, but is now discussing torture --- has officially gone off the rails?
dpatru might be using definitions you don't agree with but he/she is still positively contributing to the discussion. Seems on topic to me, just highly abstracted: what are possible systemic solutions to the article's issue? So I've upvoted dpatru's comments that were in the negative. Thanks for the discussion, very interesting!
It's amazing that people who pride themselves in critical thinking and problem solving (hackers), can actually be so naive as to believe this nihilistic Ann Rand crap.
HN is starting to look more like Reddit every day.
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> Information and resource asymmetry are not easily overcome; The best way to "overcome" information and resource asymmetry is through a free market. In particular prices and word-of-mouth/"the Internet" do this work as well as possible. If a company does a good job for a good price, its fame will quickly spread. If it rips off customers, its infamy will quickly spread. No need for government to get involved a priori…
If a company does a good job for a good price, its fame will quickly spread. So what happens when that company is bought out by new owners, starts skimping on product safety, and 1,000 people die before the market notices? If 1,000 people die, is the company held liable by the government? If people band together to enforce preventative measures in the community (even through private means), such that such a thing doe…
Intentional or negligent killing is prosecutable. I doubt, though, that not requiring bonding for a money-transfer startup will cause the deaths of 1000 people. As to businesses generally, tort lawyers as a class make a pretty good living holding businesses accountable. The Ford/Firestone controversy comes to mind. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_controv...) In that controversy plaintiffs suing Firestone and Ford alleged that people died because tire failure caused rollover accidents in Ford Explorer SUVs. As a result, both Ford (maker of the vehicle with the defective tires) and Firestone (maker of the tires) had to pay a lot money and their stock price suffered. Also, one of Firestone's tire manufacturing plants was closed and Ford and Firestone no longer do business together. So there are consequences when private companies screw up.
On the other hand, when government screws up and thousands of lives are lost, like when it holds up the sale of a new drug, fails to defend the airspace against terrorist attacks, or goes to war on bad intelligence, there don't seem to be consequences.
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If said company was truly innovative and satisfies the interests of consumers, I'm sure it won't have much trouble raising the cash necessary to continue being a law-abiding citizen.
The implication of what you are saying is that the half million for this startup company will present no extra hurdle and will have no impact on their ability to compete and get started (as you stated it "won't have much trouble"). This begs the question: what amount would be a barrier to entry into the market, 1 million, 10 million? Is there any amount of regulation and cost that you would consider a barrier to entr…
It takes upwards of $500k just to open a McDonald's franchise but they're still growing like weeds.
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You've mixed up deflation and inflation.
Slow deflation at first, rapid inflation eventually. That tends to be how bubbles work. (Not to be confused with physical bubbles, which are the other way around...)
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I like the argument that says that when things are good, they are acting like private companies, but when they're bad, they're acting like governments; ergo, private companies good, governments bad. Can we officially acknowledge that this part of the thread --- which is notionally about bonding requirements for money transfer companies, but is now discussing torture --- has officially gone off the rails?
dpatru might be using definitions you don't agree with but he/she is still positively contributing to the discussion. Seems on topic to me, just highly abstracted: what are possible systemic solutions to the article's issue? So I've upvoted dpatru's comments that were in the negative. Thanks for the discussion, very interesting!
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I wouldn't go as far as to say all regulation stifles innovation. A completely unregulated market may very well stifle innovation also - i.e., when consumer trust of that market is so low as to discourage economic activity. That is a rather extreme case, though. I think the more relevant point is that all regulations have overhead - even ones that don't charge a $500K bond. This is something governments sometimes see…
An unregulated market will spawn entities that provide the services it needs. This includes security and trust. Insurance companies, for example, are entities that people trust to protect them against loss. Rating agencies are entities that people trust to provide risk assessment. The difference between non-coercive (private) entities and government is that non-coercive entities adapt better. So, for example, if you'…
Free market capitalism is, at it's core, evolution. It leads to amazing responsiveness, complexity, and, arguably, beauty. It also has made 99.99% of all species that have ever existed extinct. There are homeostatic forces that keep the aggregate more or less balanced, but evolution isn't good for the species involved, it simply is true.
There's no mechanism in non-random selection with random mutation to prevent Asian Carp from taking over the Great Lakes, Pine Beetles from destroying forests in BC, invasive kelp in the Mediterranean, etc. Similarly, the free market has no mechanism to prevent credit fraud, market collapse, rampant speculation, or any of the other mechanisms of economic calamity we've seen. Your "coercive" government regulation plays the same role that we play in attempting to prevent environmental disasters through the spread of invasive species. Would a global ecosystem entirely managed by direct human intervention be desirable? No. Would be be well-advised to ignore threats to ecosystems and "let nature take its course"? Of course not.
Free market supremacists seem to fail to see the forest for the trees when arguing against regulations. The Free Market isn't an end unto itself, it's an effective means to the ultimate end, which is the improvement of the human condition. It isn't the only means, and it isn't the most effective means in all cases. The role of effective, well-considered government regulation is to harness the benefits of the free market while mitigating its risks. This can only be described as a Good Thing.
Rather than rail against all regulation, we should be trying to ensure that the regulations that are created are wise and impartial. Our energies would be much better spent ensuring that legislative bodies are free from undue influence than by trying to remove their power to regulate in the first case.