There are also explanations from free-market economists for the crises you cite.

I cannot even figure out what Greenspan is talking about when he says the models he idolized failed. Additionaly, this theme that the U.S. is unregulated is downright ridiculous. The housing catastrophe happened because it was designed to happen. President Clinton’s HUD department created rules that forced lenders to give loans to people who traditionally cannot afford loans. There you have it: One hundred years of regulations designed to improve the system down the drain with one INTENTIONAL act.

“Michael” is right on. Our state and federal governments can develop simple rules, that have minimal costs associated with compliance, but which are extremely effective.

keep seeing people making this mistake. Most of the press does too.

As Einstien is reported to have said, “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results,”

Hm….Sounds like government isn’t all that bad.

On the other hand…we’ve seen what lack of regulation can do: Great Depression, Oil Crisis, S&L crisis, Asian Collapse, Millennial Depression, China and any good it exports…

The cost of the shit hitting the fan when regulation is out of the picture so outweighs the costs of complying with regulation that it’s like comparing a supermassive black hole with a mouse.

FIRST, as evidenced by the last election and many, many prior elections, not many people know the damage caused by over regulation.

The crew just voted into office in DC are the types who LOVE regulation. We’ll see tons of new regs applied with unknown and (obviously) untested enforcement plans. Thus, many business plans will be in limbo because the mere threat or risk of government action is far for important to many business plans than silly things like market conditions and competition.

The worst part of this new regulatory environment will be that the threat of regulation will now be constant, with all sorts of rumors flying around as the market’s power dwindles and the power of a few Congressmen and Senators grows. Watch the trade rags and see if more focus is put on Washington and what “Washington will do.” That’s the clearest sign that we are in big trouble.

It’s going to get a lot more expensive to start and run many businesses – and the big guys will be spending even more on lobbying.

SECOND, we have to segment the “pro-regulation” forces into at least two types. The first type includes people who genuinely care about safety, clean markets and stopping corrupt practices. Their issue is they rule by exception, not with a full array of facts.

This is fine and we can tolerate some of this, but it’s the second type that is disturbing and dangerous to Democratic Capitalism. These are the people with Socialist bents. These people don’t like Democratic Capitalism. I think most of them can’t see how Capitalism could ever work. These are the people who are clamoring for regulations.

This second group doesn’t push for regulations that will help the market, but they push for regulations that tear apart the market or make it very hard for anyone in the market to succeed.

An example is the rabid environmentalists. Think about how safe oil exploration, production, refining, distributing, etc. is. Yet, these people spend every effort to stop the industry – even when many people are hurt financially or it costs the country huge sums of money because we are ignoring our own supplies. Hint: it’s not about the environment; it’s about trying to stop progress.

Remember what Obama said about the coal industry: he’ll force it into bankruptcy by regulating it to death.

What will happen when this same screwy Socialist mentality is applied to high growth industries like tech????

Unfortunately, Obama’s background is with people in the second group. Also, the Soros influence is with the second group. The bottom line is people need to start waking up and we all need to fight these liberals.

Socialism doesn’t work!

Jon
http://DreamClue.com … get the message!

Look at Arrington with the TechCrunch tablet. He had a vision. A vision that was applauded by a few tech elite, but that the general public did not really want.

Arrington sits on a throne with nobody opposing him much like a king. If he had to sit amongst superiors and push his idea through, it may have actually succeeded.

Software is just software. It has to be a means to an end. If the people at the company do not agree on a software feature if they are developing, or agree on a purchase if they are purchasing, then it shouldn’t happen.

Software has to achieve a purpose. That purpose is the will of the whole company, or organization.

When you say that bureaucracy can stifle innovation, perhaps the people that voted did not want or need that innovation in the first place. We are people making software for people. Not to achieve some prize.

It’s almost impossible to predict the net result of new rules at the time they’re made. What we’re missing in the design of government is responsibility in the courts (or another body separate from the regulatory agencies) to regularly review the outcome of regulations and roll back crappy ones – not just based on their constitutionality, but on their effectiveness. Regulation is too much a one-way street where agencies foist more and more bad rules on us until a political backlash builds to throw out the entire apparatus. A more sustainable path to evolving effective rules would include a process of continuous evaluation of those rules and pruning of bad ones.

Anyone really believe that we are going to get healthcare reform right the first time?

Then, of course, there’s terrible, horrible greed. The same motivating force that produced your car, your computer, your clothes, and, quite possibly, your job.