Topic: Regulatory Studies

Freedom is Breaking Out all Over

By
Jim Harper

Being a libertarian means you’re often the entertainment at cocktail parties.  ‘Let’s have Jim tell us why there should be no traffic lights!  It’ll be a riot!’

Now comes word that seven cities and regions in Europe are doing away with traffic lights and signs - indeed with most traffic regulations.

“The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior,” says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project’s co-founders. “The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”

…

Psychologists have long revealed the senselessness of such exaggerated regulation. About 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by drivers. What’s more, the glut of prohibitions is tantamount to treating the driver like a child and it also foments resentment. He may stop in front of the crosswalk, but that only makes him feel justified in preventing pedestrians from crossing the street on every other occasion. Every traffic light baits him with the promise of making it over the crossing while the light is still yellow.

“Unsafe is safe”

The result is that drivers find themselves enclosed by a corset of prescriptions, so that they develop a kind of tunnel vision: They’re constantly in search of their own advantage, and their good manners go out the window.

The new traffic model’s advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves.

I first read about the weakness of traffic regulation in Regulation magazine and was reminded of the concept by a recent post on TechDirt which seems to have stirred some passion given the 100+ comments.

I’m entirely in favor of a deregulated, human-oriented traffic system - though I am slightly concerned about it diminishing my entertainment value at cocktail parties.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, Political Philosophy, Regulatory Studies

Schumer-Bloomberg on Sarbanes-Oxley

By
Daniel J. Ikenson

Apparently I am not alone in the skepticism I expressed last week concerning an oped by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which the duo decries the ill effects of regulation and frivolous lawsuits on New York’s financial services sector.  Four of the five letters to the editor in today’s Wall Street Journal expressed incredulity that these two pols could possibly expect to be taken seriously on the subject, given their otherwise steadfast support for government intrusion into our lives. 

I don’t know the newspaper business, but I have an inkling the WSJ ran their piece not so much for the good ideas it contained, but because it knew that the juxtaposition of those ideas with that by-line would elicit a spankfest from its readership that would lend itself to today’s title of the Letters to the Editor section: ”Schumer and Bloomberg Are For Less Regulation? Is This a Joke? (sorry, subscription required).

There was one letter, however, that actually defends Sarbanes-Oxley and the huge regulatory burdens imposed upon financial services firms operating in New York because it “gives our New York financial market a distinct competitive advantage [relative to London].”  Come again?  Yes, this letter argues that, ”while it is quite true that there are more regulatory bodies and higher fines in New York than overseas, that is only a temporary situation.”  The author argues not that those U.S. regulations will be relaxed, but that the regulatory burden on firms operating in the London market will be just as heavy in the future, and that New York firms are lucky to have a head start on the learning curve.

To put this all in context, the author of the pro-regulation letter is a vice president at Orchestria Corporation (a New York company), which is an entity that “helps companies achieve compliance and good governance through electronic communication control.”  Orchestria is in the business of helping it’s customers “to efficiently manage the burden of regulation and ensure compliance.”  In other words, Orchestria (and probably hundreds of companies like it) is the Frankenstein of Sarbanes-Oxley.  Although people like Schumer and Bloomberg are recognizing rhetorically the damage caused by regulatory overkill, righting the ship will be more difficult than just publishing an oped.

Sarbanes-Oxley has created a whole new industry that benefits from the status quo.  I wonder if they know any politicians who would enjoy their financial support.

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Regulatory Studies, Trade and Immigration

CAN-SPAM Didn’t - Not By a Long Shot

By
Jim Harper

Every once in a while, it’s useful to go back and look at how Congress has done with past regulatory efforts.  The exercise might help determine whether to embrace, or be skeptical about, future efforts.

Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act in late 2003, and it became effective January 1, 2004.  Here’s the Federal Trade Commission’s summary of the law, which tells us that CAN-SPAM bans false or misleading header information, prohibits deceptive subject lines, requires that commercial e-mails give recipients an opt-out method, makes it illegal for commercial e-mailers to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive their e-mails, and requires that commercial e-mail be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address.

And here’s the result:  3 out of 4 e-mails are spam, and 0.27 percent of e-mails comply with CAN-SPAM.  That’s 27 in every 10,000 e-mails.

The regulation is a failure.  It provided consumers with zero benefit.  Most people are seeing less spam in their Inboxes because of improved filtering technology, a product of commercial ISPs working to serve their customers.

Should Congress or the FTC ramp up enforcement?  Increase penalties to bring spammers to heel?  No.  They should abandon the enterprise entirely and confess their incompetence to regulate the Internet and technology.

Despite its failure, consumers continue to bear the costs of the tedious regulations CAN-SPAM imposed on legitimate businesses.  They pay just a little more taxes, a little more for everything they buy online, and they forgo the benefits of that tiny margin of innovation lost as businesses divert their efforts to compliance. 

(Hat tip: TechDirt)

Topics: 
Regulatory Studies, Telecom, Internet & Information Policy

Schumer’s Epiphany?

By
Daniel J. Ikenson

I had to do a double take of the by-line of an unabashedly pro-capitalism op-ed (subscription required) in today’s Wall Street Journal. Yes, indeed, that was Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who co-authored a piece with New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg on the need to rethink stifling regulation of America’s financial services industries, and to consider tort reform.

Lamenting the relative decline of NYC as the world’s financial capital, Schumer and Bloomberg identify stifling regulation and frivolous law suits in the United States as major factors contributing to London’s and Hong Kong’s relative ascent as premiere locations for initial public offerings in recent years. Among the facts they cite is that in 2005, only one out of the top 24 IPO’s was registered in the United States, while four were registered in London. Moreover, “next year more money will be raised through IPOs in Hong Kong than in either London or New York.”

Schumer and Bloomberg cite regulatory costs that are 15 times higher in the United States than in Britain, an adversarial relationship between “tough cop” regulators and business in the United States, and the surging costs of securities-related class action suits as key factors driving business away from New York’s financial houses. The auditing expenses associated with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley are deemed to have grown “beyond anything Congress had anticipated.”

These are indeed serious problems, but it’s hard not to laugh about the irony. Schumer’s never met a regulation he didn’t like. He’s never been a friend of business. Of course he voted for Sarbanes-Oxley, along with all of his colleagues in the Senate, but he also led the charge against Kelloggs, General Mills, and the other cereal companies in the 1990s, when the price of Lucky Charms became unacceptably high to him. Just last summer, Schumer urged federal regulators to examine the behavior of oil companies to make sure they weren’t holding back production. And Schumer has been quick to ascend the podium to decry America’s growing trade deficit, urging, at times, government intervention to “correct” that growing problem.

That Schumer is suddenly opposed to stifling regulation and is saying things that are sure to upset the trial lawyers is welcome news. But it is likely just a fleeting flirtation with enlightenment. Let’s see what happens when someone points out to the Senator that New York’s capacity to attract IPOs, and the foreign investment that follows, is more a cause of the U.S. trade deficit than any “unfair trade” practices he assails. Which cause will he champion then?

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Regulatory Studies, Trade and Immigration

Kahn on ‘Net Neutrality

By
Jim Harper

Venerated deregulator Alfred Kahn weighs in on “ ‘net neutrality” - the proposal to have Congress and the Federal Communications Commission decide the terms on which ISPs could provide service, and whom they could charge for what. Net neutrality regulation is advanced primarily by the political left. Here’s Kahn on his bona fides:

I consider myself a good liberal Democrat. I played a leading role under President Carter in the deregulation of the airlines (as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board) and trucking (as Advisor to the President on Inflation), against the almost unanimous opposition of the major airlines and trucking companies and–let’s be frank about it–their strongest unions. Among our strongest allies were Senator Ted Kennedy, Stephen (now Supreme Court Justice) Breyer, and such organizations as Common Cause, Public Citizen, the Consumer Federation of America and Southwest Airlines.

On telecommunications competition:

In telecommunications, cable and telephone companies compete increasingly with one another, and while the two largest wireless companies, Cingular and Verizon, are affiliated with AT&T and Verizon, respectively, some 97 percent of the population has at least a third one competing for their business as well; and Sprint and Intel have recently announced their plan to spend 3 billion dollars on mobile Wi-Max facilities nationwide. Scores of municipalities led by Philadelphia and San Francisco, are building their own Wi-Fi networks. And on the horizon are the electric companies, already beginning to use their ubiquitous power lines to offer broadband–to providers of content, on the one side, and consumers, on the other.

His conclusion: “There is nothing ‘liberal’ about the government rushing in to regulate these wonderfully promising turbulent developments.”

Topics: 
Regulatory Studies, Telecom, Internet & Information Policy

Pages