richardhutnik said:
It seems to happen that the larger the scale is, the less relevant the individual decisions of individeuals are. With markets, you get bubbles, and bad practies become norms. The markets get so complicated, and with derivatives no one understands them, that you have a hard time for oversight. With government, the regulations get more and more complex, . And companies and industries now run large scale PR campaigns to spin the issue their way (fracking is one example of this, as was offshore drilling. Yes, had issues with BP mucking up, and then the push to drill, baby, drill goes on again). The thing about markets, is that people will buy the cheapest item, when possible. People are driven by this. The end result is an effect you will see conservatives like Lou Dobbs rail against, which is the demise of American jobs. You end up also with Walmart still being huge, and as much as people have issue with them, they still roll on. It took actually the political route using zoning, to get Walmart to reconsider. The reality seems to be that it isn't markets alone which can solve all answers, but an involved public that can tamper excesses and having government oversight. But then, there is the issue with government on the federal level that needs to be figured out. Maybe having many more representatives would fix things. But it seems now that even the political realm is nothing more than just another market where money is spent and public opinion is bought. And hating congress seems to be a fun thing to do. It doesn't really do anything. It seems people are happy with how their local guy milks it, but they don't like the system as a whole. |
I'd agree with larger scale in the terms of goverments and individual companies...
not in terms of an overall market though.
The problem with current regulations... is they invariably favor larger companies, allowing them to get bigger, by stifling competition and making smaller companies and startup companies harder to get in.
Regulations are essentially a "flat tax."
As someone with consumer psychology expierence, I STRONGLY disagree that people will always by the cheapest item by the way... there are far to many cases of it not being true. Rarely do comapnies which produce goods try to "race to the bottom" vs their competitors for price.
Afterall, why does Coke sell so much better then generic Soda? etc.
The real issue i'd say when it comes to "social justice issues" is one of two things.
A) People care a lot less about moral outrage when the cost to them to prevent it is clearly demonstrated.
B) People feel ok taking advantage of said moral outrage because afterall it's "the government" that should be handling the problem, not them... shifting responsibility away from there own actions. Understandable since it's pretty hard to claim anyone living in a first world country is living a "moral" life no matter how good they feel about themselves.
