WikiLeaks - Official Thread

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Originally Posted by Cheebs

Much of the power huge corporations have comes from the regulations themselves. In many cases removing the regulation removes power.

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What makes you think that making the companies more powerful by removing restrictions from their operations would actually make them... less powerful?

Like I said, these shitty ideas were tried before. They resulted in huge monopolies, endemic corruption, poisoned food, indentured servitude, companies that paid employees with scrip instead of real money, child labor, employee abuse, etc. The whole reason why labor unions arose was to combat corporate power of the Gilded Age. The whole reason we got food safety laws was because companies were serving up dead rats and human bones in sausages. The whole reason why drugs need to be approved is because charlatans were selling poison as medicine. Read a book on the late 1800's one of these days.

These ideas have been tried. They result in a shitty society that benefits only the rich and powerful. We got rid of it, yet for some reason a bunch of nobodies like you want to bring it back.

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Originally Posted by Cheebs

This is my idea as well... but it just can't work.

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The parties nominate the people. The "seriousness" of a party is already defined in law, so there can't be a Cheebs Party or whatever getting federal money.

How the parties decide to nominate is their own business. If they want to turn it into a clown show they can go right ahead. But once you get to the actual election level... no more.

As one example going with toy makers again:
Mattel writes a law saying that you have to use these materials and have to perform this testing because think of the children.

The law passes. The public does not know Mattel wrote it. From the outside, it looks like it is reigning Mattel in making sure they put out a safe and tested product.

In the real world, the law doesn't change the way Mattel runs things in any meaningful way since they wrote it themselves, and the tests and materials that are peanuts to a giant like Mattel are expensive insurmountable walls to any smaller toy company. Every single little guy dies out. Mattel gains power. In fact, that actually happened. Think of all the toy makers from the 70's and 80's. Think of all that are left. I think it might be Mattel and Hasbro.

This is what it is like in almost every regulated industry.


Back to the election thing: What do you mean let Republicans sort the nomination out themselves? We already don't let them run free on that one. Where do the millions for the Republican primaries come from, and how do you avoid 20,000 Republicans asking to get in on it?

And if you still think regulations don't give tremendous power to the industries being regulated, google Jack Abramoff

http://www.maartensz.org/log/2011/NL111112a.html

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/05...influence.html

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Originally Posted by Cheebs

This is what it is like in almost every regulated industry.

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And in an unregulated industry, Mattel does whatever the fuck they want. Lead in toys? It takes years before brain damage in kids is known. Money gets made today.

Okay, now, Mattel may not do that, because they are Mattel. But sure as shit a lot of other companies will, in industries less visible and less safety-oriented as children's toys.

Again, how do I know that? Because it's been done before!

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Originally Posted by Cheebs

Back to the election thing: What do you mean let Republicans sort the nomination out themselves? We already don't let them run free on that one. Where do the millions for the Republican primaries come from, and how do you avoid 20,000 Republicans asking to get in on it?

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What I mean is that Republicans can pick their nominee any way they see fit. If they want to drop gazillions of dollars to pick the one idiot they want to represent their party they can do so. But once it gets to the national level they shouldn't do that anymore.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

And in an unregulated industry, Mattel does whatever the fuck they want. Lead in toys? It takes years before brain damage in kids is known. Money gets made today.

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But Mattel can STILL put lead in their toys. They wrote the law. They either know how to get around it, or can put the lead there in a totally legal manner, or whatever. I don't know. I didn't write it. You don't know. Congress doesn't know. Nobody knows. Except Mattel. Whether they choose to put the lead there or not is another matter. But you better damn well believe that they can.

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What I mean is that Republicans can pick their nominee any way they see fit. If they want to drop gazillions of dollars to pick the one idiot they want to represent their party they can do so. But once it gets to the national level they shouldn't do that anymore.

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So after the bought and paid for elections at the Republican and Democrat level, you now have two bought and paid for candidates running with nice safe public money in the general election. How is that better? Still bought and paid for, AND we lose tax money.

This is all theoretical, obviously. But look, all a contribution is, is the present value of a favor. The amount of money that flows in for the general is huge compared to a primary, because... there's less candidates. Once it's down to 2, then everyone basically makes a bet. That's where the real money is. Romney will be commanding huge sums because he won the primary and he's one of the last two.

I don't know the exact details. What I do now is that campaign spending is obscene and out of control. Thanks to Citizen United it is going to be even more obscene this year. This needs to stop.

How can anyone honestly think that a Wall Street free of any regulation would be a good thing?

I mean seriously people.

Well, cheebs isn't completely wrong about regulation in regards to industry, helping larger industries. That is actually pretty well known and documented. It is covered in just about any level of business education when you start discussing "barriers to entry" in regards to entering a market. "meeting current regulations" is a barrier or entry that must be met.

An example: Electronics. Any electronic device that plugs straight into a wall must meet UL approval before being sold in the US market. The UL approval process cost about 6 to 8 thousand dollars per product. This process must be redone and resubmitted every time you change a component in a design. So if I release an amplifier or video game console that plugs straight into the wall, I have to have at least 6k to get it UL approved. If me or my design team change something in the device that will make it better, while the device is still in production, I have to get the design re-approved. Even if it is just one part. It could be a chip in the output of a console. Or changing one tube to another for an amp. *poof* there goes 6k.

This has proven to be a serious barrier of entry for the music equipment industry. The landscape of music equipment manufactures has changed little in the past 30-40 years. The big American and UK dogs are mostly the same as they were in the 60s/70s. New "big" players are almost 99% foreign companies that got started in their own countries. They got big before they had to deal with our mess. One exception might be Line 6, but they got big by offering their modeling "pods" which are conveniently "wall wart" powered and thus do not need UL approval. On a related note, most of the innovation and new companies in music with home bases in the US and UK develop battery powered devices exclusively because devices that are ran off of low 9 volts DC do not need UL approval. Small DC power devices have zero regulations necessary to be sold on store shelves.


On a related note, this is one reason why we still see so much innovation in web and software based business models. The barriers of entry are relatively small. There are few government regulations and the equipment necessary for production is relatively cheap. I could technically make a website, program or phone application from my house with a 200/300 $ computer. If I wanted to make iPhone aps, I would just need to pay the 100 fee, and apple would do the rest of the work for me. This is insanely cheap compared to traditional manufacturing that requires IP protection, overhead, labor, equipment, storage, shipping, etc. You could drop 100k easy before getting one simple physical product out the door.

Oh, and while I'm talking about it. You can save money on UL by letting china do the UL approval process. If you have some kind of guaranteed work agreement they will do it for about 600$ Just one more way that foreign labor is cheaper than US labor.

Yeah, those sweat shops are awesome aren't they.

I can't be bothered to read that bullshit.