Stock Market Shenanigans

[Fife]

Do you also believe that if anarchy on the streets is unacceptable the only alternative is a police state and "show me your papers"? Is there no acceptable level of regulation short of the extreme? The only reason we have market regulations is it became perfectly clear by the end of the 19th century that without them manipulation and fraud was rampant. And it's been a game of cat and mouse ever since, with the added twist the mouse can buy off the cat, or get the cat kicked out of the house.

We have more regulations, we have less regulations, fraud remains rampant. It's almost as if the regulations we pass aren't intended to prevent fraud, but rather to advantage one group of fraudsters against another. Honest regulation is fine, but what's the point of demanding more and more 'regulation' from a government that is bought off by the very institutions and businesses you're trying to regulate?

Seems kinda stupid.

So... the solution is to remove all regulation and just accept the corruption?

Yeah more government should work out just fine. We just haven't had the *right* kind of regulation. We need some of that good, old-timey regulation.

[brewster]

So... the solution is to remove all regulation and just accept the corruption?

It's funny that no one would ever dream of saying the solution to street crime is getting rid of laws and cops, but somehow that's the answer to white collar crime.

IMO the answer is to fund the white collar cops enough to be able to take on the White Collar criminals and their lawyers. Something as simple as phone taps is almost unheard of in that field. I'm no expert at this but I suspect strictly enforcing the laws we have might be enough without more regulation.

[DBTrek]

IMO the answer is to fund the white collar cops enough to be able to take on the White Collar criminals and their lawyers. Something as simple as phone taps is almost unheard of in that field. I'm no expert at this but I suspect strictly enforcing the laws we have might be enough without more regulation.

But you have no way of making that happen in our system, as election after election has proven. All you manage to do is cut more competitors out of the market and tilt the fraud table in one direction or the other. We were forced to bail out the financial sector and prop up other failed industries under a Republican AND a Democrat and nary a person was jailed.

So why should we reshuffle the deck again and risk coming out with an even worse deal than what we have now?

Oh wait . . . let me guess . . . this time your do-gooder feely-feelies is gonna make everything work out right. It didn't work the last twenty times because you weren't feeling hard enough. But this time you're really feeling the feels. This time it'll work.

Nah.

I'll pass.

Thanks.

At least I know this devil.

[brewster]

Sounds like you believe every complaint by those regulated by Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. Course the criminals would complain about how stupid the laws are and how mean the cops are.

But I will say all actually has to work! There has been no penalty for the bond raters who enabled the whole mortgage crisis. They were like Bank security guards taking a payoff from the robbers.

[SuburbanFarmer]

IMO the answer is to fund the white collar cops enough to be able to take on the White Collar criminals and their lawyers. Something as simple as phone taps is almost unheard of in that field. I'm no expert at this but I suspect strictly enforcing the laws we have might be enough without more regulation.

But you have no way of making that happen in our system, as election after election has proven. All you manage to do is cut more competitors out of the market and tilt the fraud table in one direction or the other. We were forced to bail out the financial sector and prop up other failed industries under a Republican AND a Democrat and nary a person was jailed.

So why should we reshuffle the deck again and risk coming out with an even worse deal than what we have now?

Oh wait . . . let me guess . . . this time your do-gooder feely-feelies is gonna make everything work out right. It didn't work the last twenty times because you weren't feeling hard enough. But this time you're really feeling the feels. This time it'll work.

Nah.

I'll pass.

Thanks.

At least I know this devil.

Board Challenge: Try to imagine a way that our financial regulatory system could possibly be worse than it is now. I'll wait.

(inb4 somebody comes running in to scream "COMMUNISM!!!!")

[brewster]

I'll posit that the appearance of Law & Order is actually worse than anarchy. If you know there's no one to protect your interests you stay out of the casino. Nathan Detroit's crap game depended on his personal reputation for honesty. Is there a financial institution in the US today with a reputation for honesty? Do you implicitly trust Goldman Sachs?

[DBTrek]

Board Challenge: Try to imagine a way that our financial regulatory system could possibly be worse than it is now. I'll wait.

(inb4 somebody comes running in to scream "COMMUNISM!!!!")

Intrusive regulations that make it increasingly difficult for small to mid-sized businesses to get loans, advances to make payroll, competitive stock valuation, etc - yet do nothing to curb the big players from gambling on the taxpayers dime.

You know.
Kind of like everything leading up to 2008.

But hey, THIS TIME I'm sure they'll do it right.
Because they aren't the same people they were before, and you all aren't the same fools you've been every time they wave the "regulation" word in front of your face.

Nope.
This time it'll be totally different.
It's the 2,748th repetition of "regulation" that's going to be the magic number.
I can feel it!

[TheOneX]

I'll posit that the appearance of Law & Order is actually worse than anarchy. If you know there's no one to protect your interests you stay out of the casino. Nathan Detroit's crap game depended on his personal reputation for honesty. Is there a financial institution in the US today with a reputation for honesty? Do you implicitly trust Goldman Sachs?

Agree completely.

[jbird4049]

Board Challenge: Try to imagine a way that our financial regulatory system could possibly be worse than it is now. I'll wait.

(inb4 somebody comes running in to scream "COMMUNISM!!!!")

Intrusive regulations that make it increasingly difficult for small to mid-sized businesses to get loans, advances to make payroll, competitive stock valuation, etc - yet do nothing to curb the big players from gambling on the taxpayers dime.

You know.
Kind of like everything leading up to 2008.

But hey, THIS TIME I'm sure they'll do it right.
Because they aren't the same people they were before, and you all aren't the same fools you've been every time they wave the "regulation" word in front of your face.

Nope.
This time it'll be totally different.
It's the 2,748th repetition of "regulation" that's going to be the magic number.
I can feel it!

Screaming for the 2748th time that regulations never work is asinine. It is like saying murder is still around, and police corruption is rampant, so lets allow both. After the Great Crash of 1929, and the fun of the Great Depression, the regulating of Wall Street was successful from about 1935 to about 1995. That is about sixty years. It has been a 40-50 year campaign by the wealthy to destroy this. It only really started to succeed because the parents, and grandparents, of the wealthy are not longer here.

From the 1960s on, when the survivors of the Crash (those of all classes who wanted no return to the Great Depression, part 2 regardless of their political beliefs) started to seriously die off, there was an ever stronger effort, by an ever wealthier class of rentiers to water down the regulations, and it worked, and is still working.

Corruption in our society has been increasing since about 1975 in tandem with the increasing wealth disparity. There has always been corruption but it reached a peak about 1900-1930 before the Progressive Era reformers reduced it. Say what you will about them, the movement was strongly focused and successful on fixing the corruption.

Hopefully we will deal with the corruption, and the economic issues, but that just means 2-3 generations later we will probably be right back where we are now. That's life.

[DBTrek]

That is the worst, anecdotal, hodpodge, politically-leftist, imaginary, fabrication of recent economic history ever to grace these forums.
And we have GCF here (aka - the economic pie is static and successful people are taking my "share"), so that's saying something.