patrick.net

sbh says

but you need to fund that regulation

We already spend a fortune on SEC and other regulatory bodies and they have proven ineffective.
Until lobbyists don't control "lawmakers" spending more money on regulation won't solve anything.

The young turks covered it well here
http://www.youtube.com/embed/mLKU8iw5fSs

Both government and big business grow together and the same people move from the board room to positions in government or to lobbyist's positions.

smaulgld says

Both government and big business grow together and the same people move from the board room to positions in government or to lobbyist's positions.

Yep.

Both big business and big government should be cut down to a manageable size. For government that would be "limited, consititutional government", and big businesses should simply be allowed to fail.

And BTW, what's the opposite of Think and Grow Rich? Stay dumb and remain poor???

Honest Abe says

Both big business and big government should be cut down to a manageable size

This would require the following things.
1. Cutting the military spending by at least 90%.
2. Undoing all the laws passed by Republicans since Reagan.
3. Strengthening and enforcing anti-trust laws.
4. Breaking up any company that is or has ever been "too big to fail".
5. Eliminating the "War on Drugs" altogether, legalizing weed, and decriminalizing all other drugs, and treating drug addiction as a medical problem, not a criminal one.
6. Removing all discretionary powers from the police.
7. Making all searches illegal without a warrant.
8. Limiting the number of warrants that can be issued so that the police and judges have to carefully choose when to issue one.
9. Removing all stop-and-identify laws.
10. Making it illegal to fingerprint or take a DNA sample without a conviction.
11. Making it illegal for any form of identification, including driver's licenses, from being associated with a person's address.
12. Passing a Constitutional Amendment stating that the federal government has absolutely no power that isn't explicitly given to it by the people.
13. Passing another Constitutional Amendment given the people the practical ability to recall any power from the federal government or state governments whenever the people consider it to be abused.
14. Protecting all whistle-blowers from legal and illegal consequences.
15. Removing almost all laws providing for secrecy of any business of the government including conversations, policies, actions, and events. The government should have damn few secrets and none that are outside of active military plans and technology.

Dan8267 says

3. Strengthening and enforcing anti-trust laws.

Great list!-

but you wouldn't need antitrust laws. they are often used to protect competitors from each other and don't always promote what is best for the consumer.
In a world with your other 14 points companies would compete and if any one company got so big that it started charging higher prices or was abusive to customers, consumers would merely vote with their dollars and not patronize that company any more.

Most monopolies become monopolies because the government has given them one or helped them obtain one through regulations and subsidies, so you can't really find an alternative- think Comcast and GE light bulbs

smaulgld says

Until lobbyists don't control "lawmakers" spending more money on regulation won't solve anything.

Agreed. And cutting government size won't solve anything either.
Deregulation is like removing the traffic laws: it profits the biggest trucks that can crush everything in their paths.

Heraclitusstudent says

smaulgld says

Until lobbyists don't control "lawmakers" spending more money on regulation won't solve anything.

We just need 1 constitutional amendment:
- free speech doesn't apply to for profit corporations.

And 1 law that specifically forbids political contributions from corporations or groups defending corporate interests.

Heraclitusstudent says

And cutting government size won't solve anything either.

I am not in favor of DE regulating but rather RE regulating
Take the government out of the subsidy/protection/bailout racket and put them in charge of enforcement and they would require far less funding, far fewer rules and can focus almost exclusively on fraud

smaulgld says

if any one company got so big that it started charging higher prices or was abusive to customers, consumers would merely vote with their dollars and not patronize that company any more.

This doesn't make sense. By definition monopolies use their position to eliminate competition, and therefore customer choices. People are simply forced to buy the product from the monopoly.

You simply have to admit that 'free market' can give rise to bad situations that can't be resolved by the market itself and that's why there needs to be a referee.

I'll suggest a start-up: a web site "Lobbyist.com" where citizens can debate political topics, and form groups on specific public interests topics, and make donations.
- For groups big enough, the donations would be used to hire lobbyists in Washington to bribe politicians and push in the direction promoted by the group.
- Otherwise donations would simply be used to run campaigns to promote the group.

If a few million people made even small donations to buy laws on privacy or other topic, I'm pretty sure you would see rapid changes.

At the very least it would raise the costs of buying politicians.

If you can't beat them, join them!

Government can never make intelligent choices in regards to free enterprise for the simple reason that virtually no politicians have participated in free enterprise.

Non-business people telling business people how to run their businesses makes zero sense.

Government mentality: if it ain't broke, keep fixin' it till it is. You know, overregulate it to death. Kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Make things so bad that successful people and successful businesses leave the (pick one) City, State or Country.

Honest Abe says

Rich people are willing to take on big responsibilities - which is why they get paid the big bucks.

Like Paris Hilton? The Kardashians?

sbh says

Free-market cheerleaders never have to admit that bad things arise in a free-market because they have a codified set of tenets that points the finger at government. I agree with most of them. The problem is you have to agree with all of them to be one of them.

Yep: no enemies on the right.

You can never be too conservative.

It's funny how much the doctrinaire right resembles the Bolshevik Party of the 1920s: always on the alert for ideological errors and heterodoxy.

Many of you seem strikingly ignorant that your lightly-regulated capitalist utopia has already been tried, and it was miserable for the working person. Read a little history on the USA in the late-19th century and see if that is really what you want to return to.

finehoe says

Many of you seem strikingly ignorant that your lightly-regulated capitalist utopia has already been tried, and it was miserable for the working person. Read a little history on the USA in the late-19th century and see if that is really what you want to return to.

the average person through history has got a bad deal with low average life expectancy, starvation, poverty etc.

The commercial advances of the late 19th century, however brought more material wealth and well being to larger numbers of people than ever in history.
The average 'poor" person may be obese -meaning food is plentiful, watch tv, drive a car, use electricity and the internet and travel hundreds if not thousands of miles from his home.

In the 17th 18th and 19th century no one did that.
In the early 20th century few but the extreme wealthy traveled or had running water or electricity.

The advances of commerce have made it possible for more people to enjoy more wealth and well being than ever before-its not because of government regulation that we have achieved this.