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In No One We Trust

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: In No One We Trust

#11

Post by biff »

bsirkia wrote: post #2

"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them." Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we ca…

My own suspicion is that the laws may be adequate to the task of regulation, but the will to investigate and prosecute bad actors in the financial sector is not. Until the latter issue is fixed there doesn't seem to be much point in addressing the former.

Re: In No One We Trust

#12

Post by pbreit »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
skybrian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is something like "locks keep honest people honest." If you make clear rules and get people to follow them, and people see that everyone else is following the rules, that makes following the rules normal and rule-breaking an unusual transgression, even without a panopticon. It's tricky to pull off, but how else would you do it?

The main thing we need to do is get back to real, darwinian consequences for stupid behavior. Banks would NOT have made all those "toxic" loans, nor would they have been able to bundle them into derivative products (because nobody would have bought them), if they had been exposed to the real risks they were taking on.

Are you certain about that? Because I sure am not.

Re: In No One We Trust

#13

Post by pbreit »

ams6110 wrote: post #7
thecoffman wrote: post #5

It seems a more appropriate title for this would be "In Government We Trust." Apparently large powerful entities aren't to be trusted, except for when they're called "government."

Neatly ignored is the large role the government had in pressuring banks to make all those bad loans.

Yeah, the banks sure were pushing back on all that pressure!

Re: In No One We Trust

#14

Post by gremlinsinc »

What we need is politicians who commit to giving the popular vote of their constituents decide major issues. -- A trial in Liquid Democracy if you will.

We also need term limits in congress, no more career politicians, or at least no consecutive terms--take 1 term off between terms. -- Personally I think President should be a 6 year term, sometimes 4 is too little, sometimes 8 is too much. A single 6 year term may make more sense. Senators would be the same a single 6 year term, and that's IT go get a REAL job, - Senators/Congressmen are essentially living on Welfare, we give them posh health plans, good wages, good benefits, and their voters pay all their bills via fund-raising. You should be only allowed one term in each national government position.

Re: In No One We Trust

#15

Post by spc476 »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #14

What we need is politicians who commit to giving the popular vote of their constituents decide major issues. -- A trial in Liquid Democracy if you will. We also need term limits in congress, no more career politicians, or at least no consecutive terms--take 1 term off between terms. -- Personally I think President should be a 6 year term, sometimes 4 is too little, sometimes 8 is too much. A single 6 year term may ma…

I've discussed this idea with my girlfriend (a former Federal worker) and she opposes this idea, because an inrush of freshmen Congresscritters who have no idea what is what would be beholden to the rank and file of Federal workers who aren't elected and thus, know the system more than those elected do.

In other words, the institutional knowledge shifts from elected Congresscritters to unelected bureaucrats.

Re: In No One We Trust

#16

Post by massysett »

> Similarly, teachers must be given incentive pay to induce them to exert themselves . . . Do we really believe that giving them $50 more, or even $500 more, as incentive pay will induce them to work harder?

No, I don't believe that at all. The idea is that you give teachers incentive pay to reward high performers and to attract individuals who are better teachers, and to give the high performers a reason to stay in teaching rather than to defect to another field. Similarly, the idea is that you give the CEO incentive pay to incent him to be a CEO, to attract good CEOs, and to keep your good CEO rather than lose him to another company.

Maybe these ideas are flawed, but certainly the notion is not that by giving the CEO incentive pay he will toil for 7 days a week at 14 hours rather than just 6 days at 12 hours.

Re: In No One We Trust

#17

Post by gremlinsinc »

spc476 wrote: post #15
gremlinsinc wrote: post #14

What we need is politicians who commit to giving the popular vote of their constituents decide major issues. -- A trial in Liquid Democracy if you will. We also need term limits in congress, no more career politicians, or at least no consecutive terms--take 1 term off between terms. -- Personally I think President should be a 6 year term, sometimes 4 is too little, sometimes 8 is too much. A single 6 year term may ma…

I've discussed this idea with my girlfriend (a former Federal worker) and she opposes this idea, because an inrush of freshmen Congresscritters who have no idea what is what would be beholden to the rank and file of Federal workers who aren't elected and thus, know the system more than those elected do. In other words, the institutional knowledge shifts from elected Congresscritters to unelected bureaucrats.

Nah, I'm convinced that if we were to stop elections, and go to a 100% random lottery that selects 200 random citizens w/out any idea of their credentials, we would have a healthier political system than the one we have now.
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