You listed three things that I'm really glad the government does:
- Attempts to keep all investment activity well-regulated and conformant to some definition of legitimate. Thus minimizing the risk that my money manager is going to lose my money on an illegitimate, thinly disguised gambling platform like the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
There's no reason why something like that shouldn't be tightly regulated -- HSX is not the same thing as the NYSE and shouldn't be allowed to take real money in exchange for fake value. The NYSE returns my investment when companies I've selected do well: actual value. The HSX returns my money when random celebrities have an on camera nipple slip: no value.
- Make sure that there are tight restrictions on what counts as a medical device, or as medicine. If there's something approved to go into my body for medical reasons, I want associated risks to be minimized. This is not where I want the boomtown to be -- I don't want to undergo the therapeutic equivalent of WebVan or Twitter.
- I also don't want just any jackass to be able to print a textbook off of Blurb and start selling it to my kid's teachers. Qualified jackasses only, thank you :) No seriously, the way education is decided in this country is currently suboptimal, but the goal is to have all children on the same page. I don't want to find out that my kid has been on some experimental curriculum that turned out to be a pointless waste of time.
But you're also wrong about this. It is possible to start an alternate education system, so long as you conform to guidelines about what you teach. I've never heard anyone complain that they couldn't get their education startup going because of "massive subsidies given to the traditional system." There are a number of folks trying to crack this one from different angles, from textbooks to actual brick-and-mortar institutions.
If you tell your money manager not to limit his gambling in your behalf to NYSE listed equities, he is legally obligated to do so. He will go to jail if he does not. However, even if your wallet stays closed, you can reap the positive external benefits - if HSX says some movie will suck, you can avoid shelling out $12 to your local movieplex (guess why Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians killed it?).
Or perhaps your goal is not to protect your money, but to prevent me from harmlessly entertaining myself in activities you dislike?
The same thing applies to manual medical diagnostics - you are free to pay extra for a human to give you a less accurate diagnosis if you want. Although I'm not sure why you think human doctors do such a great job - diagnostic procedures and surgery are not regulated by the FDA at all. Only devices are. So an automated medical diagnostic tool would actually be more regulated than the system we have now.
I don't want to find out that my kid has been on some experimental curriculum that turned out to be a pointless waste of time.
This already happens under the current system. Ever hear of "whole language"?
Both you and your sibling poster are claiming that individual instances of failure within the existing regime are reasons why the current regime should be abolished, which is a completely absurd reduction. I don't care how you entertain yourself. I do care if your method of entertainment, if scaled to billions of dollars, has the potential to destroy volumes of wealth for no particular reason of consequence. And I do want an agency to try to keep completely unviable quackery off the medical market.
> Attempts to keep all investment activity well-regulated and conformant to some definition of legitimate. Thus minimizing the risk that my money manager is going to lose my money on an illegitimate, thinly disguised gambling platform like the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
As opposed to losing it on a regulated, totally-not-gambling company like Enron, or in a regulated, totally-not-gambling market like sub-prime mortgage derivatives? Similar arguments could be made against the other two items as well, under the general framework of "regulatory capture". Your arguments presume that government regulation agencies always act in the best interest of the general public.
- Attempts to keep all investment activity well-regulated and conformant to some definition of legitimate. Thus minimizing the risk that my money manager is going to lose my money on an illegitimate, thinly disguised gambling platform like the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
There's no reason why something like that shouldn't be tightly regulated -- HSX is not the same thing as the NYSE and shouldn't be allowed to take real money in exchange for fake value. The NYSE returns my investment when companies I've selected do well: actual value. The HSX returns my money when random celebrities have an on camera nipple slip: no value.
- Make sure that there are tight restrictions on what counts as a medical device, or as medicine. If there's something approved to go into my body for medical reasons, I want associated risks to be minimized. This is not where I want the boomtown to be -- I don't want to undergo the therapeutic equivalent of WebVan or Twitter.
- I also don't want just any jackass to be able to print a textbook off of Blurb and start selling it to my kid's teachers. Qualified jackasses only, thank you :) No seriously, the way education is decided in this country is currently suboptimal, but the goal is to have all children on the same page. I don't want to find out that my kid has been on some experimental curriculum that turned out to be a pointless waste of time.
But you're also wrong about this. It is possible to start an alternate education system, so long as you conform to guidelines about what you teach. I've never heard anyone complain that they couldn't get their education startup going because of "massive subsidies given to the traditional system." There are a number of folks trying to crack this one from different angles, from textbooks to actual brick-and-mortar institutions.