This is Why Government Regulation of Business is So Important

Absentglare · Dec 14, 2016

faithful_servant said:
That's NOT what I said. I said that adding additional regulations because some bad apples don't follow the rules creates an additional burden. I've made that clear in this conversation and now you're intentionally misinterpretting what is said. A little integrity goes a long way...

You don't understand the conversation. The regulations are the rules. Just what the **** do you think regulations are?

jet57 · Dec 15, 2016

faithful_servant said:
That's NOT what I said. I said that adding additional regulations because some bad apples don't follow the rules creates an additional burden. I've made that clear in this conversation and now you're intentionally misinterpretting what is said. A little integrity goes a long way...

What you're saying, even though you don't see it, is that following the law is a burden. Regulations would not exist at all, had businesses followed the law and or otherwise not cheated or injured people.

joG · Dec 15, 2016

Visbek said:
And yet, no law enforcement agencies even noticed it. Which ones should have done so? And whom would they arrest?

Oh? Which laws? Can you be specific?

Do you genuinely not understand that the CFPB is the enforcement agency here? That there is no contradiction between an agency that both regulates, and enforces certain laws?

...yes, and that's what the CFPB did here.

It isn't that the CFPB had some sort of first mover advantage. It's that addressing this issue was their job.

If you read the link, you should have seen the following: "Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB has the authority to take action against institutions violating consumer financial laws, including engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices."

So basically, you should have no objection to the CFPB doing its job. Thanks for playing.

I thought there were criminal investigations proceeding in the matter.

faithful_servant · Dec 15, 2016

Absentglare said:
You don't understand the conversation. The regulations are the rules. Just what the **** do you think regulations are?

There are laws and there are regulations. Laws are passed by legislatures, regulations are created by bureaucrats. When a company breaks the law, we should be dealing with that illegal act, not creating regulations that only serve to add burdens to entities that are not breaking the law.
The area where that has struck closest to home for me is in the timber industry where a few bad apples (Crown Pacific being the worst, IMO) drove the bureaucrats to create regulations that pushed out good apples (Gilchrist Timber Co. for example). These weren't laws, they were regulations established by the Dept. of the Interior in response to illegal acts carried out by companies like CP. The Dept. of the Interior established remediation standards that were WAY over the top in response to CP's abuse of the existing LAWS (they figured out that the cost of remediation was more than the cost of the fines for not doing the remediation). Instead of fixing the poorly written LAWS, they simply made the REGULATIONS more onerous by forcing companies to spend even more money on documentation and planning of remediation. So now, instead of just doing the remediation, they had to spend a massive amount of money putting together a remediation plan and documenting everything they did. CP was able to absorb this cost, since it reflected a very small % of the total cost, while companies like Gilchrist had top spend a substantial % of their profits on this kind of thing. They did NOTHING to stop CP, but the additional burdens they placed on small timber cos. like Gilchrist, were the one of the straws that broke those camel's backs.
Now we have bank doing illegal things and getting away with it and the response to impose regulations on everyone in order to stop a few lawbreakers. FIX THE DAMN LAWS SO THAT THE LAW BREAKERS CAN'T GET AWAY WITH THESE ILLEGAL ACTIONS!! Creating more regulations that the bad apples will simply circumvent using their massive experience at such things does NOTHING to stop them. Fixing the laws so that the loopholes being used to circumvent the laws is the solution to this problem. But that demands work and a process to follow that make not be the immediate, quick fix solution (with substantial negatives and long term failure) that you want. We need to fix the laws, not punish an entire industry for the actions of a few.

faithful_servant · Dec 15, 2016

jet57 said:
What you're saying, even though you don't see it, is that following the law is a burden. Regulations would not exist at all, had businesses followed the law and or otherwise not cheated or injured people.

Except that you keep ignoring the part about creating regulations in response to breaking the law instead of as a guideline to how things should operate... That part just keeps going right over your head.

jet57 · Dec 15, 2016

faithful_servant said:
Except that you keep ignoring the part about creating regulations in response to breaking the law instead of as a guideline to how things should operate... That part just keeps going right over your head.

Not at all: the law IS the guideline! and companies are not following those guidelines are they? Wells Fargo cheated the public by pressuring it's employees through disciplinary action to meet quotas for new accounts. Haven't you ever gone through a check out line and been asked if you want to open a credit account, or do you have a "rewards card"? I mean, look at the housing crisis and all the dirty loans that were invested in when the pushers knew damn well that those products were going to explode. We can't have business in this country run amok and rip off millions of people. Regulations put up concrete walls that business must adhere to.

jonny5 · Dec 15, 2016

jet57 said:
The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Accusations of Fraud at Wells Fargo Spread to Sham Insurance Policies

And let's not forget the Trump University fiasco, the housing crisis, the savings and loan debacle, ENRON etc etc.

Stuff like this is too frequent and too damaging to the economy and the public. We've seen this over and over again and the business world will never police itself and the excuse that it's "illegal" has done nothing to stop it. Greed is as greed does and the general welfare demands some protection against it.

We should bear this all in mind as the new Trump administration takes aim at regulation.

Sure, THIS is why regulation is important. Not the gazillion other things that govt regulates, like what types of grape youre allowed to put on your wine bottle, whether a church can sell tombstones, whether a restaurant can have salt on the table, how energy efficient a freezer has to be, what speech is offensive to have on television, whether someone can pay you to drive across town, or whether you have to have a license to cut hair.

Yes, an insurance company stealing from customers actually IS something the govt should be regulating.

faithful_servant · Dec 15, 2016

jet57 said:
Not at all: the law IS the guideline! and companies are not following those guidelines are they? Wells Fargo cheated the public by pressuring it's employees through disciplinary action to meet quotas for new accounts. Haven't you ever gone through a check out line and been asked if you want to open a credit account, or do you have a "rewards card"? I mean, look at the housing crisis and all the dirty loans that were invested in when the pushers knew damn well that those products were going to explode. We can't have business in this country run amok and rip off millions of people. Regulations put up concrete walls that business must adhere to.

That's where you're failing... Regulations and laws are NOT the same thing. This is case of a LAW being broken and the response is to create more regulations. We need the LAW fixed and the law breakers prosecuted.