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Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

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Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#41

Post by pitaj »

rtkwe wrote: post #37
PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

Another aspect of this is that a lot of regulation doesn't really work, it gets corrupted or bloated in numerous ways because it might help but actually doesn't. The separation between people doing the thing and those overseeing it leads to ineffective regulation that ends up not actually saving lives and also potentially costing a lot of manual time to adhere too. I am not sure liability insurance is necessarily the…

I see this all the time but it seems every time we go through a round of regulation trimming based on that premise we see the industry in question suffering issues within a couple years, and the cycle seems to just keep getting tighter. The 90s/early 00s cut back banking regulation and then we had the 08 crash. Trump rolled back some rail regulations and now we've got serious incidents happening there. Of course busi…

> The 90s/early 00s cut back banking regulation and then we had the 08 crash.

Little to no evidence that the deregulation was the cause

> Trump rolled back some rail regulations and now we've got serious incidents happening there.

Derailments have increased recently but are still lower than they were in 2000.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#42

Post by zajio1am »

kmeisthax wrote: post #25

>What areas of regulation have not fallen into these traps, or at least not as badly? For instance, building codes and restaurant health inspections seem to have helped create safety without killing their respective industries. Driver’s licenses seem to enforce minimal competence without preventing anyone who wants to from driving or imposing undue burden on them. Are there positive lessons we can learn from some of…

> Not it's original intent, of course: the original idea was to keep black people out of the suburbs. Like much else in the US, the structure is not perpetuated for the sake of racism, but it is an artifice of vestigial racism.

Zoning laws limiting new buildings and artificially increasing cost of housing are pretty universal feature in developed world, even in racially homogeneous countries.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#44

Post by slavboj »

lacker wrote: post #3

I think the core problem is the incentives of the regulators. Groups like the FDA are democratic institutions, but if their only goal is to have the approval of national politicians, the feedback they get is either negative if there's a bad product released, or neutral if there is no terrible product released. The FDA must have done something right - what have they done right? We don't even know. Their incentives are…

The FDA is emphatically not a democratic institution. Who exactly do I vote for if I disagree with FDA policy? Can a civil service FDA employee be fired on the grounds of supporting a particular wildly unpopular policy?

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#45

Post by derbOac »

version_five wrote: post #9

they hired a new staff of administrators to wield the real power. These administrators had never done research themselves, had no particular interest in research, and their entire career track had been created ex nihilo to make sure nobody got sued. This is not limited to drug approvals, and is imo on it's way to destroying society. Everything we do it governed by safety obsessed technocrats with no understanding of…

Really in many cases it's been co-opted for special interests for the sake of rent seeking. It's just layers of problems at this point.

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#47

Post by rt4mn »

slavboj wrote: post #44
lacker wrote: post #3

I think the core problem is the incentives of the regulators. Groups like the FDA are democratic institutions, but if their only goal is to have the approval of national politicians, the feedback they get is either negative if there's a bad product released, or neutral if there is no terrible product released. The FDA must have done something right - what have they done right? We don't even know. Their incentives are…

The FDA is emphatically not a democratic institution. Who exactly do I vote for if I disagree with FDA policy? Can a civil service FDA employee be fired on the grounds of supporting a particular wildly unpopular policy?

I feel like thats a deliberate misreading of the parent comment.

Of course the FDA is not, itself, a democratic instution. But then neither is your local police department or NASA. The reason those institutions are accepted despite the lack of direct democratic accountability is because they are still situated within the larger democratic institution (the US government) and subject to oversight by those elected representatives.

If you hate the FDA your best bet is to lobby against it yourself (or help others that do). Its to much of an in-the-weeds issue for it to be a high priority for most lawmakers (unless maybe you live in a district with a lot of businesses regulated by FDA)

Re: Who regulates the regulators? We need to go beyond review-and-approval

#50

Post by firstlink »

rt4mn wrote: post #47
slavboj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA is emphatically not a democratic institution. Who exactly do I vote for if I disagree with FDA policy? Can a civil service FDA employee be fired on the grounds of supporting a particular wildly unpopular policy?

I feel like thats a deliberate misreading of the parent comment. Of course the FDA is not, itself, a democratic instution. But then neither is your local police department or NASA. The reason those institutions are accepted despite the lack of direct democratic accountability is because they are still situated within the larger democratic institution (the US government) and subject to oversight by those elected repre…

> Groups like the FDA are democratic institutions

> deliberate misreading of the parent comment

> Of course the FDA is not, itself, a democratic instution.

Can't tell if doublethink or just motte-and-bailey.

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