Hacker News Reader

Comment by tsally | Hacker News Reader

> If govt doesn't fail much more oftenI note that very few markets have set up death camps or waged significant wars. than the market, why would one want the govt to be responsible for all essentials?

The article addresses this; because the government can be more consistent. Hence the need for them to be in charge of essentials.

> I note that very few markets have set up death camps or waged significant wars.

You're mixing apples and oranges here. How about a market that stops human rights violations?

View on HN

It sounds like a great idea to let government regulate food. A very successful country did just that, the USSR. Where people stocked up on such nonessentials as butter when the factories finally could produce it.

Point being, arbitration and market forces will always ensure there are more resources available because the government is a monopoly with no challengers. In any markets with competition prices are lower, and more output is available. Besides, does anyone really think that governments can better judge and hedge the risk of various crop failures etc than the market?

> It sounds like a great idea to let government regulate food. A very successful country did just that, the USSR. Where people stocked up on such nonessentials as butter when the factories finally could produce it.

No one is proposing "regulation" on the level of the USSR.

> Does anyone really think that governments can better judge and hedge the risk of various crop failures etc than the market?

Does anyone really think the government can better judge and hedge the risk of mortgages than the market?

No, and the evidence backs this up. Guess who wanted the most to increase home ownership and pressed for subprime loans through stunts like the community re-investment act? Congress.

Guess whose legally protected rating agencies gave AA+ ratings to massive CDOs? Congress.

Guess who managed to figure out that subprime was going to blow and tried to guard against it? Goldman and assorted hedge funds.

Funny the double standards that we hold markets and government to.

Using Goldman as a representative of the market is insane--if it were the market wouldn't look anything like it does now.

Of course not. But thats still better than the government where nobody figured it out.

> No one is proposing "regulation" on the level of the USSR.

Why not? We're told that govts must be in charge of essentials because markets fail.

> Does anyone really think the government can better judge and hedge the risk of mortgages than the market?

The recent mortgage crisis pretty much proves that govts are worse at judging mortage risk than the market. After all, it was the subprimes, pushed by govt, that caused the problem.

And, it was govt that provided incentives to invest in Fannie and Freddie.

And, it was govt's backing that gave Fannie and Freddie the ability to borrow money that their assets couldn't pay back.

> The article addresses this; because the government can be more consistent.

Govts have no more inherent ability to be consistent than markets. And, if change is required, consistency isn't a good thing.

It's interesting that you keep comparing the platonic ideal of one alternative with the messy reality of another.

> How about a market that stops human rights violations?

Since markets create far fewer human rights violations than govts, markets are better here as well.

> Govts have no more inherent ability to be consistent than markets.

Not so. Being consistent requires a redundant system. A redundant system is not the most efficient one.

> Since markets create far fewer human rights violations than govts, markets are better here as well.

I will venture a guess and say that just as many human rights violations have been committed in the name of the free market than any government. Sweatshops anyone? But my point with that comment was not to argue semantics. It was to point out that you were arguing apples and oranges.

170 million murdered in genocides. Armenia, the Gulag, Auschwitz, the Great Leap Forward. Rwanda. Littler, still stark things like Varosha. World wars.

In the 20th century alone.

Can the market match that?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com