Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Retric 4137 days ago
I think it's more nuanced than that. Private companies optimize for money, with the right incentives they work well, with poor incentives they become a pointless money sink.

All too often you see the equivalent of “though the magic of the invisibly hand we will solve X.” But, without the proper incentives simply privatizing or reducing regulations are going to do little but line someone’s pockets.
1 comments
woodman 4137 days ago
> But, without the proper incentives simply privatizing or reducing regulations are going to do little but line someone’s pockets.

Well, that is true every system - including functions of government. It has nothing to do with privatization vs nationalization. The government mandates that certain financial instruments must be rated by a short list of companies that have been blessed to do so. So the government has limited competition among rating agencies, a laughable mistake in judgement. Then these companies only get paid by the folks trying to sell the instrument under review... another stupid move.

Many government programs, presumably setup with the best intentions, have serious negative consequences because the moron behind it didn't think more than one step ahead. This happens in private industry as well, the difference being that there the market corrects for mistakes by mercilessly crushing fools. In government the fools live on, and their plans are slow to change because it is now law.

link
Retric 4137 days ago
'the moron behind it didn't think more than one step ahead'

I think many and possibly most of these are based on regulatory capture where elected officials / regulators are ‘given incentives’ to look the other way.

Lots of seemingly stupid decisions are completely reasonable from the person who made them. All it takes is for someone to be judged just on their little piece of what happens (how much do we spend on paper) and not judged based on how much their changes hurt the corporation/overall economy etc. And before you know it, we saved 1million in ink last year at the cost of 50 million in manpower.

link
woodman 4137 days ago
> Lots of seemingly stupid decisions are completely reasonable from the person who made them.

Lol, good intentions are worth absolutely nothing. Your misallocation of resources story isn't really helpful either, if you think the SEC made a great move in structuring financial instrument ratings - explain it.

link
Retric 4137 days ago
That's not what I meant. It's not 'good intentions' vs 'reality' it's 'selfish intentions' +'bad measurement' = 'WTF rules'.
link
woodman 4137 days ago
Ah, well that is a consequence of poor planning by the well-intentioned. Here, I'll show you:

People are bad, therefor we need a government made of people are bad, therefor we need a government made of people are bad...

link