[chinaco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 This is the main reason I am on such a "less government" kick. All Congress bashing aside, even if every Congressperson was a certified genius, they simply cannot have expertise in all the areas that they are now involved in. Just look at the detail level of the bills in Congress. It is insane. T-Al pointed out a while back (this was a CA bill, but the idea holds), about how the bill banning incandescent bulbs had exceptions for all these specific types of bulbs, right down to the number of standoffs holding the filament, technical restrictions on the filament, bulb base size, etc, etc, etc. How many CA congress members are conversant in light bulb design? Why are they voting on these issues? Why are they taking the time to get them written into legalese and debate them? Insane. BTW, that does not mean I think they should ignore important issues, but I think any laws should address issues at a high level, not the micro-management level. In the example of the incandescent light bulb ban - if it really is in the "common good" for people to conserve electricity, raise the taxes on it, and let the free market figure out what kind of light bulbs to design, plus a million other ideas that could save electricity - more than any legislatures could come up with in a law. -ERD50

Well... apparently things have to be ruined every 75 to 100 years to remind our politician that people and their behaviors do not change. If you let people have the opportunity to take huge risks... they will (at everyone elses expense).

Most of the legislators took it on faith because certain (experts) said it was the way to go.

But there are a couple of key villains in this story. Phill Gramm is one of them. He was lobbied... then he pushed and shoved some of this cr@p in the bill. After that he and his wife took jobs in the very industries that benefited. I am sure there are a couple of other congressmen and senators that sold us out.

I do not want to over simplify or generalize... but it seems to me that we continue to get scr3wed and ripped off in the securities markets by the financial institutions (hedge funds, etc.) that manipulate the market. Then once our money is essentially gone because they ruined the thing... they turn to congress and the administrtation for a bailout and we have a huge tax bill....

This is why strict regulation is needed. Otherwise we will continue to be screwed by the hucksters. People can scream about big government all they want... and it is certainly imperfect. But who else will protect us from the these situations? Some people get on their high horse and pontificate about free markets and "let the market handle it"... but the fact is that the securites markets, credit markets, the economy and our savings are all interlinked. And there are a bunch of clever people that take advantage of us. The field is not level! We are getting scr3wed.