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FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

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Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#121

Post by vundercind »

Dalewyn wrote: post #120
vundercind wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of choosing wise locals to go judge the candidates and choose on our behalf (since a general election for president is kinda crazy—they were right about that) fell apart pretty much instantly when we started actually holding elections, making the institution all but pointless except for presenting opportunities to attack our democracy with weird procedural shit because it’s more complicated than it needs to…

The thing is it's not the citizens of a State choosing the POTUS, it's the citizens of a State choosing which candidate their State will choose for POTUS. Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively. The reason the College gives more weight to less populous St…

The actual electors are basically pointless though. You can assign the electoral votes however the states decide to (some split it, et c) and that’s that. The rest is risky pageantry (and not even an entertaining sort!) and has been very nearly since day 1. The human electors have never really functioned like they were supposed to.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#122

Post by Dalewyn »

vundercind wrote: post #121
Dalewyn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is it's not the citizens of a State choosing the POTUS, it's the citizens of a State choosing which candidate their State will choose for POTUS. Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively. The reason the College gives more weight to less populous St…

The actual electors are basically pointless though. You can assign the electoral votes however the states decide to (some split it, et c) and that’s that. The rest is risky pageantry (and not even an entertaining sort!) and has been very nearly since day 1. The human electors have never really functioned like they were supposed to.

I agree that the electors being actual people are mostly an artifact of a bygone era at this point. It's even illegal in most States for an elector to vote contrary to what the State's citizens decided.

That being said though, Congress still has authority to act as a failsafe in the event the College deadlocks and Congressmen are most definitely actual people, so maybe there is some obscure value left in Electors likewise being actual people.

In the interests of Chesterton's Fence and Not Fixing What Ain't Broke(tm), so long as the human nature doesn't become a significant problem it's probably not worth checking out the consequences of changing things around.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#123

Post by 0x5f3759df-i »

Dalewyn wrote: post #112
0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, there’s a reason we didn’t give Germany and Japan our “exceptional” electoral college system. Tech debt exists in constitutional law as well.

The Electoral College exists as a compromise regarding two needs: * The need to keep the Executive and Legislative Branches separate. * The need to represent States in a manner they already agree with, for sake of brevity. Thus the Electoral College: Composed in the same way as Congress is (plus pretending D.C. is a state) whose sole task is electing the head of the Executive Branch as representatives of the States t…

You’re just making my point, it was a compromise for the time that no sane person would include in a country or constitution started from scratch today. There’s a reason no other country on earth uses such a ridiculous system. It is just tech debt we have to live with.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#124

Post by miki123211 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #47
miki123211 wrote: post #35

If you think this is a "capitalists being evil" problem and not an "regulators over-regulating" problem, you should pay particular attention to fragments of the article: > It’s not that hard to come up with a model for underwriting that is reasonably accurate; any bank with scale could probably do it. But FICO uses trade secrets, copyright, patents, or restrictive contracts to block anyone from doing so. > First, the…

The capitalists regularly lobby government to destroy their competition and make holes in regulations that would cause major disruptions to their business models. The light truck exemption to CAFE rules is a great example.

And the proper response to this is to lobby government to repeal those regulations, and close those loopholes, not to add yet more regulations aimed at breaking monopolies.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#125

Post by comte7092 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #112
0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, there’s a reason we didn’t give Germany and Japan our “exceptional” electoral college system. Tech debt exists in constitutional law as well.

The Electoral College exists as a compromise regarding two needs: * The need to keep the Executive and Legislative Branches separate. * The need to represent States in a manner they already agree with, for sake of brevity. Thus the Electoral College: Composed in the same way as Congress is (plus pretending D.C. is a state) whose sole task is electing the head of the Executive Branch as representatives of the States t…

The “need” for the EC is all post hoc rationalization at this point. It was an expedient political compromise made in an environment that is wholly different than the one we live in today.

The only reason we maintain it now is because it is both too hard to change and also perceived (correctly or incorrectly) to give an advantage to one of the two major parties in our political system, which effectively kills their support.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#126

Post by mint2 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #101
mint2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incorrect, those are not government monopolies, those spaces have private options. FedEx, DHL, UPS and government USPS Parks - there’s a ton of types with equivalent public and private versions Police - private security Firefighters - there are private fire fighters who protect houses threatened by wildfire - they just don’t need to respond when it comes to responding to stuff like traffic accidents and healt…

I mean, you can edge case away any argument. My neighbor uses solar and batteries so I guess the power company isn't a monopoly?

That’s not comparable, that analogy is like saying I have a backyard so there’s no government monopoly on parks. It’s not like saying there’s a private tennis club and public tennis courts, or whatever other typical park amenities.

That flawed analogy is like saying I have a baton so police aren’t a monopoly on protection, when my analogy actually was private security companies.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#127

Post by comte7092 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #120
vundercind wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of choosing wise locals to go judge the candidates and choose on our behalf (since a general election for president is kinda crazy—they were right about that) fell apart pretty much instantly when we started actually holding elections, making the institution all but pointless except for presenting opportunities to attack our democracy with weird procedural shit because it’s more complicated than it needs to…

The thing is it's not the citizens of a State choosing the POTUS, it's the citizens of a State choosing which candidate their State will choose for POTUS. Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively. The reason the College gives more weight to less populous St…

> Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively.

This isn’t even accurate from the perspective of 1789. The articles of confederation created a model akin to what you’ve outlined. The constitution created a quasi blend of popular representation and state level representation in the federal government as a result of several different compromises in order to form a stable national government.

That isn’t how anything effectively works today though. The federal government has undergone numerous reforms both explicitly within the constitution and implicitly without any formal constitutional changes. These include the direct election of senators, income taxes, etc but also the effective binding of presidential electors to the outcome of the popular vote within a state.

Americans today don’t think of themselves as citizens of the state of California, they think of themselves as Americans solely, the former concept being absolutely foreign and strange to them.

Finally, the EC gives very little benefit to small states. The relative impact is consistently overstated. The only place that small state over representation effectively exists is in the senate.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#128

Post by comte7092 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #122
vundercind wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual electors are basically pointless though. You can assign the electoral votes however the states decide to (some split it, et c) and that’s that. The rest is risky pageantry (and not even an entertaining sort!) and has been very nearly since day 1. The human electors have never really functioned like they were supposed to.

I agree that the electors being actual people are mostly an artifact of a bygone era at this point. It's even illegal in most States for an elector to vote contrary to what the State's citizens decided. That being said though, Congress still has authority to act as a failsafe in the event the College deadlocks and Congressmen are most definitely actual people, so maybe there is some obscure value left in Electors lik…

> That being said though, Congress still has authority to act as a failsafe

The irony is that, as originally envisioned, what seems like a failsafe now was how they thought the election would be decided. The EC was just supposed to be a filter, the final election was Congress voting as state blocs. The framers didn’t see the party system coming though.

> Not Fixing What Ain't Broke

If there’s one thing that Americans can generally agree on, it’s that things are definitely broke, just maybe not the particular thing that is broken.

Having too much rigidity in a system is how things end up collapsing out of nowhere. As stated in my prior comments, there’s actually been a significant amount of change and adaption in the constitutional order since 1789, it has just been implicitly down rather than explicitly so in the form of constitutional amendments.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#129

Post by lenerdenator »

miki123211 wrote: post #124
lenerdenator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capitalists regularly lobby government to destroy their competition and make holes in regulations that would cause major disruptions to their business models. The light truck exemption to CAFE rules is a great example.

And the proper response to this is to lobby government to repeal those regulations, and close those loopholes, not to add yet more regulations aimed at breaking monopolies.

You realize, of course, that the regulations are there for a reason, and that it's probably best to reform them?

I don't want just any fly-by-night operation having the ability to judge my credit worthiness. If you don't tell people that's illegal and that they risk prison for it, they'll at least try it to make a buck. That's the problem, not government regulation. We're a country constantly at war against bad faith. And we're losing.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#130

Post by Dalewyn »

comte7092 wrote: post #127
Dalewyn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is it's not the citizens of a State choosing the POTUS, it's the citizens of a State choosing which candidate their State will choose for POTUS. Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively. The reason the College gives more weight to less populous St…

> Remember, the US is a federation of sovereign States and POTUS as Chief Executive of the Federal government represents and is chosen by the States thereof. Each State represents its citizens respectively. This isn’t even accurate from the perspective of 1789. The articles of confederation created a model akin to what you’ve outlined. The constitution created a quasi blend of popular representation and state level r…

>This isn’t even accurate from the perspective of 1789. The articles of confederation created a model akin to what you’ve outlined. The constitution created a quasi blend of popular representation and state level representation in the federal government as a result of several different compromises in order to form a stable national government.

The Constitution vests all powers with the people, and certain powers are delegated to States at the pleasure of the people. The States in turn delegate certain powers to the Federal government at the pleasure of the States.

While it certainly looks the other way, the hierarchy of political power in America has always been People > States > Federal.

The Constitution also mandates separations of power between the three branches of government, unlike say the Westminster system where the Legislative branch elects the Chief Executive at their pleasure.

>That isn’t how anything effectively works today though. The federal government has undergone numerous reforms both explicitly within the constitution and implicitly without any formal constitutional changes. These include the direct election of senators, income taxes, etc but also the effective binding of presidential electors to the outcome of the popular vote within a state.

Indeed, and States Rights vs. Federal Powers continues to remain a hot topic because both sides want more power.

Incidentally, the legal requirement for electors to follow the election result of their State is decided by each State. Most States have this law, but some do not. The Constitution explicitly gives the States this authority, not the Federal government.

>Americans today don’t think of themselves as citizens of the state of California, they think of themselves as Americans solely, the former concept being absolutely foreign and strange to them.

Is it? There are memes about Californians and Floridians, not to mention stereotypes of New Yorkers and Texans among others and otherwise simple pride in your home state (particularly prevalent among servicemen and veterans).

The National Guards of each State are also rooted in the concept that each State is sovereign and will have a military force legally independent from the Federal military force.

>Finally, the EC gives very little benefit to small states. The relative impact is consistently overstated. The only place that small state over representation effectively exists is in the senate.

The benefit to smaller States in the EC is nearly if not perfectly identical to that in Congress because apportionments are deliberately identical.

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