| Raze said:
As for regulations, yes, there are a LOT of bad moves more recently that caused the credit/housing mess, as you said above. My point on deregulation was more about what was done in the long-ago deregulation. How about this thought - price regulation for fixed market oil? For example, a price lock of $2.00/gallon for gasoline. When gas prices hit $3.00/gallon, oil companies post 300-400% profits. If they took a 50% hit in price, they'd still make 150%-200% profit, and the suggested regulation isn't asking for that much of a reduction. |
Not a fan of price controls, for fairly obvious reasons. Neither am I especially offended by an oil company making massive profits given the fact that their product is critical to life as we know it. The fact that they receive about $20 billion in subsidies per year is what gets my goat.
The problem with current regulations is that they're written by people who have their own constituencies and donors in mind, usually with direct input from lobbyists. The stiffest penalty there is, is bankruptcy without any possibility of a government bailout. Instead, we have what amounts to a long series of wristslaps, and hey, the more you fuck up, the more taxpayer money you'll be lavished with.
