[Cary Grant]

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/250480-bernie-sanders-says-he-has-serious-problems-with-uber

While I don't like the downward slide in rates, I also don't have to drive. I have a choice. If some choose to drive for these low rates, more power to them.

One thing I really don't want to see is the gooberment trying to force any party, be it Uber, Lyft, or drivers, to do anything they don't want to do. People like Bernie Sanders can't fix what's ailing Uber, but they can destroy it. I'd rather he do nothing at all.

If you want Uncle Hind Teat to wet nurse you, then go get an hourly wage job.

 

[GooberX]

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/250480-bernie-sanders-says-he-has-serious-problems-with-uber

While I don't like the downward slide in rates, I also don't have to drive. I have a choice. If some choose to drive for these low rates, more power to them.

One thing I really don't want to see is the gooberment trying to force any party, be it Uber, Lyft, or drivers, to do anything they don't want to do. People like Bernie Sanders can't fix what's ailing Uber, but they can destroy it. I'd rather he do nothing at all.

If you want Uncle Hind Teat to wet nurse you, then go get an hourly wage job.

Oh, BULL SHIT.

They can make them FOLLOW the laws that are in place for a reason.

 

[Realityshark]

Two thoughts: Enron and Fannie May.

 

[Adbam]

Ahhh every major bank, Bernie madoff. Unregulated capitalism is very bad. GREED TRUMPS ALL!

What about the drivers that do have to drive? Do you think all business should do what ever they want. Make loans that take advantage of people. Steal people's pensions. Dump waste in the water.

Yes big government is not the best but big business is worse.

 

[Cary Grant]

Two thoughts: Enron and Fannie May.

Enron's big crime was massive accounting fraud. Laws and regulations don't prevent crime anymore than police protect you from bad actors. The resulting Sarbanes-Oxley Act is one of the primary reasons Uber exists, and has such a deep well of driver talent ready and willing to drive their own cars at less than a buck per mile.

Fannie Mae - FEDERAL National Mortgage Association was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal (i.e., statist collectivism). It is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE). The mortgage scandals of the recent decade are directly caused by excessive and extraordinary regulation. For example, NINJA loans are not a free-market creation, but one created by a FNMA faux market that would buy any "paper" a bank could package. FNMA removed risk from financial underwriting, so any piker who could fog a mirror could get a mortgage that no banker would go near.

Neither example calls for more laws or more regulation. To the contrary, they both overwhelmingly prove that excessive and extraordinary regulation are a drag on the economy, with extreme negative returns.

 

[Txchick]

Enron's big crime was massive accounting fraud. Laws and regulations don't prevent crime anymore than police protect you from bad actors. The resulting Sarbanes-Oxley Act is one of the primary reasons Uber exists, and has such a deep well of driver talent ready and willing to drive their own cars at less than a buck per mile.

Fannie Mae - FEDERAL National Mortgage Association was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal (i.e., statist collectivism). It is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE). The mortgage scandals of the recent decade are directly caused by excessive and extraordinary regulation. For example, NINJA loans are not a free-market creation, but one created by a FNMA faux market that would buy any "paper" a bank could package. FNMA removed risk from financial underwriting, so any piker who could fog a mirror could get a mortgage that no banker would go near.

Neither example calls for more laws or more regulation. To the contrary, they both overwhelmingly prove that excessive and extraordinary regulation are a drag on the economy, with extreme negative returns.

The primary reason for Sarbanes-Oxley Rule was to implement CEO's & CFO's sign off on the financials as accurate. Have we had a Enron type situation since then..nope. How does Sarbanes-Oxley connect with Uber?

 

[Cary Grant]

Ahhh every major bank, Bernie madoff. Unregulated capitalism is very bad. GREED TRUMPS ALL!

Bernie Madoff? He's a thief, he just stole more than most, and he did it while having a securities license, under the very noses of one of the biggest regulators (FINRA ex NASD, and the SEC, as well as the NASDAQ). That's not an unregulated business. It's been government regulated for over a century (Kansas started that in 1911, with Uncle Hind Teat getting on the band wagon in 1933).

There is no such thing as "unregulated capitalism." All markets are regulated, one way, or another. A market of buyers and sellers, without laws, is self-regulating, via the free hand of the market itself. When the gooberment regulates, they don't create something out of nothing, they don't "create" regulation, they merely replace free market regulation with government regulation. Free market regulation has the absolute lowest drag on the economy, infinitely approaching zero. Government regulation is extremely expensive. It costs more than the pre-tax profits of all the public companies we have!

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/hidden-cost-regulation

You've never seen free market regulation (or what you think is "unregulated capitalism"), because it has not existed during your lifetime, or the lifetimes of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents, et al.

Market disruptors, like Uber, are about as close to the free market as you will ever see, and then we only see them briefly, because once Uncle Hind Teat meddles, it's never a free market again, costs go up, profits go down, including profits for drivers.

What about the drivers that do have to drive? Do you think all business should do what ever they want. Make loans that take advantage of people. Steal people's pensions. Dump waste in the water.

Your straw man fails. Nobody here is a slave or serf. Nobody has to drive. Google "logical fallacy" to learn why your straw man fails.

Oh, by the way, the largest dumping of waste in the water in recent memory just happened. The EPA did it:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/09/navajo-nation-epa-spill/31384515/

The EPA -- your government at work!

And what does the EPA want to do? Make their mistake a "Superfund" problem! (read: we need more tax dollars to fix our own Charlie Foxtrot)

Yes big government is not the best but big business is worse.

That sounds like something Karl Marx might say. Or Lenin. Or Stalin. Or Mussolini. Or Castro. Or Kim Jong Un.

 

[Rainbow Stew]

The primary reason for Sarbanes-Oxley Rule was to implement CEO's & CFO's sign off on the financials as accurate. Have we had a Enron type situation since then..nope. How does Sarbanes-Oxley connect with Uber?

Yes, we have had an Enron-type situation since then, except it was much larger and it was called the 2008 financial crisis, which was driven by financial institutions carrying assets on their books that were worth far less than investors were led to believe.

Although there were countless casualties of the 2008 financial crisis, some of the larger ones were Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Washington Mutual. The 2008 financial crisis dwarfed the Enron/Worldcom debacles in every way, and it was absolutely driven by false information being provided to investors regarding the value of the assets held on the books of various financial institutions.

The interesting question is why no meaningful enforcement of the criminal penalties under Sarbanes-Oxley occurred in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. There were certainly countless opportunities to prosecute CEOs and other executives who signed off on financial disclosures that contained false information regarding the value of the assets being carried on their books.

From my perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley was a complete failure. It added an extra level of compliance and disclosure expense while providing almost no extra protection to investors.

 

[Txchick]

Yes, we have had an Enron-type situation since then, except it was much larger and it was called the 2008 financial crisis, which was driven by financial institutions carrying assets on their books that were worth far less than investors were led to believe.

Although there were countless casualties of the 2008 financial crisis, some of the larger ones were Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Washington Mutual. The 2008 financial crisis dwarfed the Enron/Worldcom debacles in every way, and it was absolutely driven by false information being provided to investors regarding the value of the assets held on the books of various financial institutions.

The interesting question is why no meaningful enforcement of the criminal penalties under Sarbanes-Oxley occurred in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. There were certainly countless opportunities to prosecute CEOs and other executives who signed off on financial disclosures that contained false information regarding the value of the assets being carried on their books.

From my perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley was a complete failure. It added an extra level of compliance and disclosure expense while providing almost no extra protection to investors.

That was due to irresponsible mortgage lending via sub prime loans. The bank engineers took those loans & turned them into pooled supposed low risk securities with Moody rating them triple A plus credit rating. That was a primary cause of the collapse of 2008. When these CBO's securities started to collapse & the fire sell began to happen banks did not have enough to cover their losses.

 

[Rainbow Stew]

That was due to irresponsible mortgage lending via sub prime loans. The bank engineers took those loans & turned them into pooled supposed low risk securities with Moody rating them triple A plus credit rating. That was a primary cause of the collapse of 2008. When these CBO's securities started to collapse & the fire sell began to happen banks did not have enough to cover their losses.

Right. And if the financial institutions had been disclosing the actual value of these assets through their financial reporting as Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to guarantee, the financial crisis would have been far less severe and might not have happened at all.

You said we have not had another Enron-type event since Sarbanes-Oxley was passed, and I pointed out that we had a much larger Enron-type event in 2008--i.e., investors being burned by financial disclosures with incorrect information.

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Uber, but I thought it was worth clearing up.

 

[CTCharlie]

The primary reason for Sarbanes-Oxley Rule was to implement CEO's & CFO's sign off on the financials as accurate. Have we had a Enron type situation since then..nope. How does Sarbanes-Oxley connect with Uber?

It doesn't. Uber Technologies is a privately held company and not a public one. Sorbanes-Oxley applies to publicly traded companies. While many auditors try to apply the rules to private companies, those companies are only responsible to their investors.

 

[renbutler]

Enron's big crime was massive accounting fraud. Laws and regulations don't prevent crime anymore than police protect you from bad actors. The resulting Sarbanes-Oxley Act is one of the primary reasons Uber exists, and has such a deep well of driver talent ready and willing to drive their own cars at less than a buck per mile.

Fannie Mae - FEDERAL National Mortgage Association was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal (i.e., statist collectivism). It is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE). The mortgage scandals of the recent decade are directly caused by excessive and extraordinary regulation. For example, NINJA loans are not a free-market creation, but one created by a FNMA faux market that would buy any "paper" a bank could package. FNMA removed risk from financial underwriting, so any piker who could fog a mirror could get a mortgage that no banker would go near.

Neither example calls for more laws or more regulation. To the contrary, they both overwhelmingly prove that excessive and extraordinary regulation are a drag on the economy, with extreme negative returns.

Like +1000

 

[Txchick]

It doesn't. Uber Technologies is a privately held company and not a public one. Sorbanes-Oxley applies to publicly traded companies. While many auditors try to apply the rules to private companies, those companies are only responsible to their investors.

Correct.

 

[Txchick]

Right. And if the financial institutions had been disclosing the actual value of these assets through their financial reporting as Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to guarantee, the financial crisis would have been far less severe and might not have happened at all.

You said we have not had another Enron-type event since Sarbanes-Oxley was passed, and I pointed out that we had a much larger Enron-type event in 2008--i.e., investors being burned by financial disclosures with incorrect information.

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Uber, but I thought it was worth clearing up.

Security trading & financials two different ball games.

 

[superhans]

Yes, we have had an Enron-type situation since then, except it was much larger and it was called the 2008 financial crisis, which was driven by financial institutions carrying assets on their books that were worth far less than investors were led to believe.

Although there were countless casualties of the 2008 financial crisis, some of the larger ones were Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Washington Mutual. The 2008 financial crisis dwarfed the Enron/Worldcom debacles in every way, and it was absolutely driven by false information being provided to investors regarding the value of the assets held on the books of various financial institutions.

The interesting question is why no meaningful enforcement of the criminal penalties under Sarbanes-Oxley occurred in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. There were certainly countless opportunities to prosecute CEOs and other executives who signed off on financial disclosures that contained false information regarding the value of the assets being carried on their books.

From my perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley was a complete failure. It added an extra level of compliance and disclosure expense while providing almost no extra protection to investors.

And we have another in the offing, the only reason an effective 0% interest rate remains is to keep a sick economy from straight-lining, everyone knows the economy tanks the moment it rises. The mixing of investment and retail by the banks has exposed us to the magical machinations of Wall St boffins once again, government will try but is always going to be one step behind them, we'll get another Hank Paulson 'we need money to prevent a global meltdown' moment soon as we scamper to socialize the losses.
Presumably we are all workers on this forum, for Uber most likely, we should be careful not to vote against our best interests and reign in the sharing boys with some nice distribution of profits for those that produce it.

 

[Rainbow Stew]

Security trading & financials two different ball games.

What are you talking about?

At any point in time, every asset that is traded is OWNED by someone, and if that someone is a public company, then the asset will show up in its financial disclosures with a value assigned to it.

How that value is assigned is what they were trying to clean up after Enron with Sarbanes-Oxley, and the 2008 financial crisis demonstrated that the regulatory reform designed to prevent another Enron simply failed.

This was your statement that started this side discussion:

The primary reason for Sarbanes-Oxley Rule was to implement CEO's & CFO's sign off on the financials as accurate. Have we had a Enron type situation since then..nope.

Do you truly believe that we have not had another Enron-type situation since 2001-2002? To me, Lehman Brothers and Countrywide Financial were almost carbon copies of Enron and Worldcom, except Dick Fuld and Angelo Mozilo managed to avoid going to prison.