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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

That's not true.

Why do people think this? Because Elon Musk can tweets dumb memes? The size and scope of regulatory agencies has vastly increased over the years. And fines paid out are gigantic. Take banks for instance:

> Financial institutions have been hit with $10.4 billion in global fines and penalties related to anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), data privacy, and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) regulations in 2020, bringing the total to $46.4 billion for those types of breaches since 2008.

https://www.complianceweek.com/surveys-and-benchmarking/repo...

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That's across the whole globe, in the US it was only $4.3B, and it's a record year because of the 1MDB settlement. This is the government clawing back dimes on the dollar from banks that profited massively by aiding illegal enterprises.

For the size and scope of regulatory agencies to increase, their budgets would have to increase faster than inflation of wages in their relevant markets. We don't see that in finance (SEC) nor in technology (FCC). The regulators are paid comparative peanuts.

Do you have a source?

Here's a source that suggests SEC budget has increased 82% over 10 years

https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/reform...

Hard to tell if you're arguing in good faith with a heritage foundation link, but the stats there are fine.

A 82% budget increase from 2008-2018. But only a 31% increase in employees since 2004. Markets have gotten much larger with many more trades over the same time period. Certainly technology helps handle the increase but there is an orders of magnitude difference between a 2004 market and a 2021 market.

Crypto is a good example. It didn't used to exist. SEC is the only US regulatory body for it.

> Hard to tell if you're arguing in good faith with a heritage foundation link, but the stats there are fine.

I don't know what you mean by this. I googled SEC spending over time and found this well sourced article about spending. I understand that Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank but why does citing something from there mean I'm not arguing in good faith? I'm missing something....

> A 82% budget increase from 2008-2018. But only a 31% increase in employees since 2004. Markets have gotten much larger with many more trades over the same time period. Certainly technology helps handle the increase but there is an orders of magnitude difference between a 2004 market and a 2021 market.

Your original claim was that they're underpaid or underfunded, which is just wrong. Their budgets have increased by more than the inflation rate. And you still don't provide any data to back up any of your other claims, instead you attack me for arguing in bad faith and claim it's not a big enough increase because you think it should be bigger because you know, crypto.

I didn't attack you. The SEC was underfunded in 2008, and was still underfunded in 2018. A good source showing that their budget has increased by 82% over those 10 years doesn't change, or even challenge that. My original points were:

- These fines are dimes on the dollar compared to profits gained

- Regulators are comparatively underpaid, with the comparison point being workers in the regulated sector.

Goldman Sachs is a single firm that made $9.5B in profit in 2020 who has to pay a $2.9B fine over $1.6B in bribes paid with $2.7B of "misappropriated funds". A single firm paid nearly the entire SEC's budget ($1.75B 2020) just in bribes to foreign officials.

But sure, since the SEC's budget has increased by 82% since the housing market failed, they have all of the funds they need. Clearly we have a value difference here. The issue is not the facts at hand, it is our opinions on what they mean.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/goldman-sachs-charged-foreign...

Honest question, how much did they make in profits from illegal activities that led to the fine of $10 billion? I have no idea if it was millions or trillions. My hunch is they paid much less than they made, although I hope to be wrong on this.

The fines are consistently overshadowed by the ill-gotten profits, in every case I run across. I wish you were wrong.

Imagine how many students would cheat on tests if the penalty was not a failing grade, but only a “wrong answer” counted for every question they could somehow prove you cheated on. Ooh, and you’d get to bring in experts to argue with them on your behalf about it for a few years while having the grade you got through cheating stand on the records for all that time.

But both could be true: agencies getting weaker but corporations becoming more instrumental in rule breaking and accepting fines as cost of business. Perhaps the behaviour is getting worse?

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