From: solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Regulations
Date: 11 Apr 92 11:40:57 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <1992Apr11.004438.10945@husc3.harvard.edu>, koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (Anthony Koumis) writes:
 
|> Do you think people want to live in slums JAson?  DO you think all the
|> people in Harlem would rather mover elsehwere and live in a better 
|> place?  SO mayber were the chicken farm workers.  BUt I am
|> afraid that ECONOMICS keeps them there.  People cant afford to move.
|> They are not fully informed of other options even if they could 
|> afford to move.  And who would say, especially, in this economy
|> that they would get a job if they did move.

If you give people the choice of dying, or going where there are jobs, I
GUARANTEE that they will move to where there are jobs. The people are in Harlem,
because the government feeds them to stay there.
 
|> And, what is this claim of the turnaround time for CEO's being three
|> years if he is inefficient.  The Pinto was designed in the 1960's and
|> Lee Ioccoco the head of its production is still around making even
|> more money.

Lee Ioccoco has demonstrated considerable talent as a businessman. Given that
you've screwed up your facts here, however, I'll ignore this point. Just let me
say, that anything that sells, sells because people like it, and that the
hundreds of suits filed against car manufacturers each year are enough to keep
them in line. (Unfortunately, the inefficiency of our legal system and fear of
publicity cause almost all to be settled in the plaintiff's favor out of court)

|> 
|> The point about car safety regulations is that all cars must meet
|> in a mininum standard.  If they had no mininum to meet then they
|> could all get together and agrree not to and the conumer is stuck
|> with a nonchoice.

Look at airbags. Recent studies have shown that airbags make a HUGE difference in
the amount that a company can get for a car. This is because people CARE about
airbags. Are you trying to tell me that companies will turn the profit DOWN,
because they rather stiff the consumer than make money. I hate to break the news,
but companies like money. It is PROFITABLE to make your cars safe, and when it is
not profitable, it is because the buyers have decided that they rather take a
risk, than spend extra money.
 
|> As I said, lets tell credit bureaus they can only report things that
|> are relevant to your credit worthiness like job, salary, if ever have
|> late payments and not that maybe your nosy neighbor thinks you might
|> get drunk ever other week.

A credit bureau's job is to bring in profits. So are the companies that use them.
The more accurate the credit bureau, the more money the company makes. This
causes the company to use the credit bureau which turns up the most accurate
results. If creditworthiness turn out to be more accurately reported when
neighbors opinions are factored in, who are you to prevent them from using this
information. Economics will reward the most accurate information with the most
money. I think it is entirely likely, that people whose neighbors think they get
drunk on weekends, are more likely to default on loans.

|> DO you know that most credit bureaus have
|> their investigators have to bring in a certain quota of negative
|> information about people they investigate.  Definitely a bad
|> corporate regulation, wouldnt you think?

Not at all. It is a good business policy to make employee rewards comensurate with
performance, and performance in that line of work is digging up dirt.

|> It is naive to think that competition necessarily will help you there.
|> There are only three major credit bureaus in the US (Equifax. TRW &
|> another one).  They have no one to compete with.  They ahve no
|> incentive to compete b/c businesses use their services despite
|> invasions of privacy into citizens lives. They dont care.

You completely miss the point. They DO care. They WANT private information. It is
PROFITABLE for the business, if they have access to as much information as
possible. Why should there be anything wrong with this.

Jason W. Solinsky