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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: geode00 who wrote (146126)11/6/2008 9:31:49 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 173976
 
You are now saying that we do not have too much government regulation?

What would make you think that?

Some of the regulation we have is vital. Other regulations are important. Others are not very important but perhaps provide a net benefit. Others are no big deal either way. Others aren't bad in isolation but aren't worth their cost, so they are negatives. Others are bad ideas even before you consider the cost.

Overall we have too much regulation, but that doesn't mean that any new regulation would automatically be a bad idea. You can add new better targeted regulation while cleaning out the bad, or just outdated regulation.

So you are against the bail out?

Yes.

All of it?

Well its pretty extensive, so its hard to even consider all of it at once except in the most general terms. Some government actions in response to the problems might not be considered bailouts. If you list some of the specific points you want to examine, I could tell you whether I oppose them or not.

What would the financial system look like today with no government intervention of any kind?

Different people may have different ideas about what would qualify as intervention in the financial system. So the question isn't so simple. For example do you consider managing the money supply to be intervention? That's questionable but not ridiculous, some people would. Do you consider laws against fraud to be intervention? I do not. Even beyond those points I'm not a fundamentalist here. I'm not really calling for no intervention at all. For example reporting requirements and capital reserve standards make sense.

No, lack of government oversight helped create the housing bubble.

There was a lot of government oversight, but to a large degree it was to push more lending to more people. More active oversight and intervention may have just pushed more foolish actions. You can't assume government is going to be perfect or that if its imperfect its only because it isn't active enough.

Having a dirty restaurant is not the same as beating someone to death with a bat. Is that not obvious?

It is reasonably obvious, but isn't relevant to anything I've posted.