Washington Post Special Report: Breakaway Wealth

I largely agree with this assessment. That said, I'm less pessimistic that corporate governance laws could never work to solve these problems. I don't think the law needs to anticipate all the possibilities. Instead, it needs to somehow change the trade-off between agency and monitoring cost. Something like the recent "Say on Pay" regulations moves in the right direction by making it easier for shareholders to voice their opinion on executive compensation without running an entire proxy fight. I'd suggest we go even further than the current non-binding resolutions (although I can see arguments on the other side).

Of course corporate governance law is clearly a complicated area many bright people have tried to better for many years. I guess my point was less about debating the actual optimal corporate governance laws, and more a critique of those arguing against government "interference" in corporate governance more generally.

 

My side? What, pray tell, is that? The Bull Moose Party?

And survey after survey shows the American public is ill-informed ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090502666.html

 

C'mon. Besides gun rights, you're a by the book liberal.

As for ill-informed, that's different than stupid.

People can be ill-informed and still be able to make good decisions. Can still assess the merits of a couple of Presidential candidates.

(There are also some flaws in some of the studies your article cites.)

 

I'm far from a "by the book liberal" whatever that is. In fact, that political quiz that charts your beliefs puts me as a conservative-leaning libertarian (which is different than the tea folks who bastardized the libertarian label).

 

I'm a Libertarian!

But I'm not like those guys. They embarrass me. I'm nothing like them.

 

Yup.




Big difference between knowing how "best" to spend your money and simply knowing what you want to spend your money on. Any country that can turn "truck nutz" into a thriving business doesn't exactly make me optimistic.

 

What do the conservatives/libertarians on here think of Mitch McConnell's proposal today? A brilliant scheme that will lift the GOP to political glory next November? A surrender, as Erik Erickson and other conservative pundits have cried today? Or much ado about nothing?

 

I saw a tricked out, jacked up Cadillac with these a few weeks ago... Awesome!!!

 

YF, you have got to be kidding me with this have a beer with crap. NONE of those people in Washington would be having a beer with any of the little people except for to get them to vote for them. And especially not GW Bush. If he was sooooo authentic, why did he get the hell outta that brush ranch as soon as he left office and into a nice gated community in the Dallas suburbs where he can hire some nice illegals to do the yardwork?

 

I had this conversation with my uncle Thanksgiving, 2004 when he said he'd "rather have a beer with Bush than John Kerry" and I shot back, "you wouldn't have much to discuss. He graduated from Yale and Harvard while you flunked out of Penn State. You like baseball? He owned a fuckin' team. You buy gas. He owned an oil company. Beyond that, you got nuthin'." What followed, was some amazingly fun silence.

 

Bush doesn't drink. Can't handles his liquor.

 

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/01/dubya-and-me200901