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Comment by age_bronze | Hacker News Reader

I don't get why regulation is needed. The whole thing is by definition very high risk investment, and I think it'd be silly for any "scam-victim" to claim he didn't know he's entering a high risk, and also high chance of scam, deal.

In the end of the day, why is it the government's job to protect idiot people's money? And that's coming from the country where gambling is legal? The whole thing is based upon get-out-of-our-way-government exactly because of these ridiculous regulations.

If someone got money to waste, and decided to bet on some ICO horse, I wish him luck. If he doesn't have money to waste, it doesn't stop him from gambling on a real horse (which is still legal, and yet has 0 meaning whatsoever), so why are we so bothered about him gambling on this new virtual horse?

Sure, arrest those ICOs that are actually 100% clear scam because they left misleading expectations which they never had an intent of fulfilling.

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I mean, we need regulation because 1929.

We need regulation because regulation promotes confidence in the market which increases participation in the market.

Security regulation is among the easiest government regulation to justify from a market perspective.

It isn't the government's job to "increase participation in the market".

We can have differing ideas of what a government's job is.

In my opinion, one of the jobs of government is to address clear market failures. On the securities side of things, 1929 was a clear market failure. On the environmental side of things, Love Canal was a clear market failure. The government is in the best position out of any entity to address these failures, to prevent a horde of swindlers from tanking our economy or to prevent some corporate stooges from poisoning elementary school children.

I'm actually fine with the government acting to "increase participation in the market". That's why we try to have a steady 3% inflation, to encourage market participation.

Governments are political beasts, if they are working correctly they respond to the will of the people, and if the people decide that "something must be done about financial scams" they make laws.

It's how democracies work

It's how democracies work

And? "Democracies" aren't inherently good, just, noble or virtuous. As the old saying goes "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the outcome".

Not really an old saying, unless I guess you are really really young, the first part, often misattributed to Franklin first turned up in the popular literature in the 90's, the last sentence was tacked on later BT someone else

That has absolutely nothing to do with the point at hand.

You claimed an aphorism, implying it was valid because it was old,it isn't, it's made up poppycock by some American survivalist twit

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