regulation

  • It's over — we're officially, royally fucked.
    Is how Matt Taibbi's long article in Rolling Stone begins, and it doesn't get any more optimistic from there on. If you were looking to be enraged by a detailed explanation of how this whole crisis is a result of a political structure that in the past 10-15 years has constructed a system to create wealth for massive companies and the financial class, this is it.
    In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.
    Some populist rage is needed here, but boy has it been misguided so far. (via wayneandwax) (0) #
    3/23/2009
  • Judge Richard Posner, who more often than not sides against government regulation, is actually open-minded about the trans fat ban in New York City.
    [E]ven those of us who distrust government regulation of the economy should be open to the possibility that the ban on trans fats would produce a net improvement in the welfare of New Yorkers by satisfying a preference that most of them would have if the cost of absorbing information about the good in question were not prohibitive.
    But like his first commenter, I question the cost of opening the door to further regulation in this area, which Posner doesn't mention. (9) #
    12/18/2006
  • Sony has been caught faking viral videos to market the PSP, soon after the FTC announced they would be cracking down on such schemes. Read about their shady attempts here. This reminds me of the rumors that New Line was faking some of the Snakes on a Plane user-generated content (without the knowledge of snakesonablog). It may've worked with The Blair Witch Project, but there's definitely a crossable line here. Expect to see a lot more of this sort thing -- the question is, can it or should it be government regulated? (9) #
    12/13/2006
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