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user-inactivated  ·  2571 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

Sure perfect regulation may be possible, but I'm saying it's hard to come by to a great enough extent that I'm not optimistic about it. And when things do get screwed up, when the government has less authority over whatever it is that it's getting screwed up, it impacts fewer people negatively.

An example off the top of my head is Tom Wheeler. He shocked everyone by not doing a terrible job as head of the FCC. And what that really looked like was him saying that he wouldn't allow telecoms to operate directly in opposition to their customers. But now his replacement comes in and is going to totally screw up net neutrality to everyone's detriment (minus the cronies). But he can only do this because we had to regulate right of way to make utilities possible.

So we have this excellent legislation with right of ways that makes telephone networks possible, but also is a huge threat to the internet. And it wouldn't be a big deal if we could trust the people in charge, but we obviously can't because they seem to be 90 percent plus in the pocket of whatever industry wants to buy them.

I'm not saying sensible legislation and regulation isn't a good idea, but I would say it's less common than you'd expect. And there are always unforeseen risks that will have to be dealt with later. The one that's blowing my mind now is that young people are bitching about not being able to buy a house, but then scream idiot at adjusting the laws which prevent banks from lending to them more easily.