Kind of like asking why large tournaments don’t need referees. Imagine how the NFL would be if you only had one referee, and the team owners could choose him? If each oil well is a playing field, does it not make sense to have the number of referees based on the number of playing fields rather than on the number of field owners?
Having more regulators and auditors does not mean having more rules, but it does mean having more referees to make sure those rules get followed.
Yes, the exact same people who are willing to lie and cheat and steal at the $20B company will be lying, cheating and stealing at the $2M company. Fortunately, since there are tons of $2M companies, most of them will not be run by lying, cheating thieves. It was Henry Ford, not exactly a communist, who said, “The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” That’s the way that most people actually think - work hard, make a good product, and earn your success. (Edit to note: if you find that most people don’t think that way, it may be that they are just smart enough to realize that it won’t work in today’s world and they have had to suppress this instinct - it may also be that you spend too much time around economists)
When you severely limit the number of positions of control, you make it so there are enough intelligent sociopaths to fill every single one of them.
Entirely besides that, do you know what inspectors do when they find that 10 companies out of 100 are breaking the law? They shut them down! What do inspectors do when they find out that 10 departments out of 100 at the mega-corporation are breaking the law? They file a report that no one cares about and fine them less than the profits of their illegal activities. We can keep an eye on them, but we can’t actually do anything if we see them misbehaving (or so evidence would suggest).
I guess that goes some way to solving the problem of where we find busywork for people while others decide their future for them.
All this talk is just about rearranging deckchairs until we’re taking it as a given that the sandwich didn’t just fall on the floor - it’s a turd sandwich, and it’s time to make Ⓐnother one.
I’m sorry, but it seems you are throwing in the towel way too early. You sound like a sports fan who complains that the Bears are a bunch of cheats, so you may as well not bother officiating the game. Damn refs just hamper the players anyhow.
You can improve the system and make sure the laws get followed.No need to be a quitter.
Pff, quit!
From where I’m standing, you guys advocating persisting with a fundamentally broken system aren’t even starting.
Time’s a wasting, dammit!
Just let’s get our heads together, hammer out a flexible new model and switch to it en masse, leaving the old one to crumble on the damned scumbags who love it so much.
And it occurs to me the new system could simply recognise the necessity for periodic renewal from the start, and incorporate mechanisms to minimise the trauma. Like, say, when enough people have had the shits, start a new currency.
You know, like having an ‘erase’ facility on your etch-a-sketch, so you don’t have to smash it and make another one every time.
Tell that to Cliven Bundy, who is angry (among other things) at the land management practices that don’t let his cattle graze on the same patch of land year after year and instead force him to rotate pastures.
I’d like to see laws like, if you’re worth say, more than ten billion dollars, then bang - you have to use um, mechanical computers for everything. Oh, and in another ten years we’ll throw in another curveball on top. Like, uh… you have to get 15% of your work done outside the Earth’s atmosphere. And so on.
At least do some fucking cool tricks with all. that. fucking. money.
See? This is how it is, as long as people are extrinsically motivated by this bullshit concept called money. Once it was necessary like oil to a mechanism, now it’s only necessary like a hangover is after a night on the piss.
Ultra fast response…
What is unfortunate is that in an imperfect world where people live by game theory rules, and those rules are how people in busness school are taught to think, regulation of companies at a certian point becomes a pro business and paradoxicaly anti competetion/consumer situation.
Large companies can influence the govenrment and laws to their favor, they can also make contributions to those who appoint regulators favorable to them. You end up with a situation where the regulators will enter and exit through a revolving door where their favors are repaid once back in the private sector. It is called regulatory capture and finance, intelectual property, and telecom are famous for regulating small operators out of the market and assisting existing big players.
[quote=“dobby, post:28, topic:34586”]
What is unfortunate is that in an imperfect world where people live by game theory rules
[/quote]Peeps need to realise what a game-changer the intertron can be.
Oh, and quit the commercial media.
Does game theory extend to the effect of brainwashing?
What’s needed is more direct control of government by ordinary, everyday Americans, instead of rich lawyers and career politicians and their corporate buddies who line their pockets in return for political favors (DMCA, War on Drugs, etc.).
Abolish corporate personhood and make it clear that the only people who get rights are actual individual people.
Game theory assumes that people will work in their best interest not for the best of all unless there is a social, monetary, or other cost associated with bad behavior severe enough to cancel the benefit, without a downside you have a moral hazard.
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I would say that the way game theory was taught as an obvious nearly Newtonian level physical law when I was going for a masters in finance about ten years ago, so I guess you need to be brainwashed well enough to write papers and pass exams to get the degree required to participate. Critical thinking is not a common trait any more if it ever was, most people trust their professor especially when he tells them the same thing as their future boss, to grab everything they can get before someone else does.
I went back to school in 2008, pick up my Year 12 and the first year of a biotech degree as a bonus within the year, and bailed before I started incurring a HECS debt. Most of the reason I quit was disillusionment at the culture, despite one absolutely outstanding dude, and quite a few other good folks; it wasn’t as different from high school on a scholastic level as I was hoping.
The problem is that game theory doesn’t actually get the best result, even for the person applying it. A rigorous attempt to play a Nash Equilibrium gets worse payouts than the intuitive way that ordinary people play. Game theory does not tell you how to maximize your returns, it tells you how to make sure no one else does better than you. There was a recent game theory headline and discussion of this here: Chimps beat humans at game theory. The chimps mimicked game theory, the people didn’t, but when you add up the result the people did better than the chimps.
Game theory is useful for one thing: winning at games. Applying it to real life requires a good deal of fear and spite.
What trusts are Apple and Google a part of?
Nice observation, it seems to fit well with the most common motivations I saw in the industry, eff them and their douchbaggery. Though poorer I am so glad I am free from that world.
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I wonder how many tons of shit is flung by those game theory chimps over at Goldman every year?
He’s also angry that them tyrants actually expect him to pay for grazing his cattle on public land. How the hell is he supposed to continue being an all-Amerikun sickessful small biznesman if he has to pay bills? Making people pay for stuff they use is fashist soshulism, dammit. It’s against the Constutition!
(You know, it’s actually kinda fun just stringing shit together that way. I can see why some folks do it. And with a little practice, maybe I could get a well-paying gig with Fox News.)
If you want regulations you have one choice:
What you’re rightfully addressing, is that corporations, along with governments, both employ and benefit citizens, in a tangled mess of stakeholding.
As the number of employees and shareholders in businesses increase, the number of internal/external policies (ie regulations) need to also increase.
The issue is that businesses export their inefficiencies to the government. So a business does a few things really well, but rely on the government to cover the rest of the overhead.
So when you scale up the problem, you notice that citizen, shareholder, bureaucrat, employee and politician are all various hats in the game; the more hats you wear, the better you benefit from minimal regulation, as your influence is much broader.
What he means is:
“Taxes include an overhead cost that I fail to calculate when I manage my money, therefore someone is trying to steal my wealth.”
Being from the US, I’d never heard of Gough Whitlam before. Fascinating character. We could use more like him today. A lot more like him.
The tactic that brought him down is being used in Venezuela now to weaken the Maduro government, and if anyone actually liberal and representative of the interests of the people were elected in the US I’m sure we could expect the same.
Gough was tough till he hit the rough.
