10 Easy Steps To Effective Regulation

Madeline

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Apr 20, 2010
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Cleveland. Feel mah pain.
You run the national gooey-cheese manufacturing and distribution businesses, and I want to regulate you. Can I do that effectively?

Yes Ma'am, I can! So glad you asked.

Step One: Create and fund the US Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency.

Step Two: Hire reasonably competent and intelligent people to staff it.

Step Three: Tell each and every one of them that if there is a gooey cheese disaster they are all getting fired, down to the very last ready-to-retire administrative assistant. Failure to regulate is not an option.

Step Four: Prohibit BY LAW any career moves between the Gooey Cheese Industry and the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency. Period. You have worked for one, you can never ever work for the other. Get caught trying to and you go to prison.

Step Five: Prohibit Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employees from marrying, domesticating with or getting all preggers by or with any Gooey Cheese Industry employee, director, owner, lobbyist or Major Consumer. Take a vow of matrimony with one and you must take a hike. No job here, and no job ever with the Gooey Cheese Industry.

Step Six: Prohibit by law any Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employee from owning directly, indirectly or by any convoluted means dreamed up by some hotshot lawyer any interest in the assets or income of any business or subsidiary of the Gooey Cheese Industry PERIOD. Get caught doing so and you go to prison.

Step Seven: Limit all employment in the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency to a term of three years. After that, you are OUT unless you move up or down. No laterals.

Step Eight: Audit the tax returns of all Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employees. Anyone caught accepting zippity-do-dah from a Gooey Cheese Industry employee, director, owner, lobbyist or Major Consumer gets sent to prison. These people can accept NOTHING. EVER.

Step Nine: Set the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency on the US Government Org chart under "Government Accounting Office" supervision and budget.

Step Ten: Write some regulations about Gooey Cheese.

 
You run the national gooey-cheese manufacturing and distribution businesses, and I want to regulate you. Can I do that effectively?

Yes Ma'am, I can! So glad you asked.

Step One: Create and fund the US Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency.

Step Two: Hire reasonably competent and intelligent people to staff it.

Step Three: Tell each and every one of them that if there is a gooey cheese disaster they are all getting fired, down to the very last ready-to-retire administrative assistant. Failure to regulate is not an option.

Step Four: Prohibit BY LAW any career moves between the Gooey Cheese Industry and the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency. Period. You have worked for one, you can never ever work for the other. Get caught trying to and you go to prison.

Step Five: Prohibit Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employees from marrying, domesticating with or getting all preggers by or with any Gooey Cheese Industry employee, director, owner, lobbyist or Major Consumer. Take a vow of matrimony with one and you must take a hike. No job here, and no job ever with the Gooey Cheese Industry.

Step Six: Prohibit by law any Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employee from owning directly, indirectly or by any convoluted means dreamed up by some hotshot lawyer any interest in the assets or income of any business or subsidiary of the Gooey Cheese Industry PERIOD. Get caught doing so and you go to prison.

Step Seven: Limit all employment in the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency to a term of three years. After that, you are OUT unless you move up or down. No laterals.

Step Eight: Audit the tax returns of all Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency employees. Anyone caught accepting zippity-do-dah from a Gooey Cheese Industry employee, director, owner, lobbyist or Major Consumer gets sent to prison. These people can accept NOTHING. EVER.

Step Nine: Set the Gooey Cheese Industry Watchdog Agency on the US Government Org chart under "Government Accounting Office" supervision and budget.

Step Ten: Write some regulations about Gooey Cheese.


Step 1: No Issue

Step 2: Again, no Issue

Step 3: Big Issue. Do this and no one in thier right mind would ever approve anything. You would have to fill out 500 pages of forms just to get the real application for a gooey cheese permit.

Step 4: Issue: When regulating gooey cheese you need people with gooey cheese experience. It would be like having an accountant try to regulate a nuclear power plant. I agree this is an issue but an outright ban would be problematic. You would have to grab a person right out of college, then assure them lifetime employment, as they couldnt be employed by thier industry if they leave. Kind of makes Step 3 a problem as well

Step 5: This inovlves serious right to privacy issues, and again creates problems with Steps 3 and 4.

Step 6: This could be workable. Would need an exception that the fed pension plan can invest in them. Create a barrier between the pension and the employee.

Step 7: Kind of harsh. Who would want to work for an agency that does this? You would have to offer one hell of a salary, which is limited to the cap of the presidents.

Step 8: Again, privacy issues and who would want to be under such scrutiny?

Step 9: Why this? Just wondering?

Step 10: By following the above steps you would create such draconian regulations from people scared shitless over losing thier jobs, with no other place to pefrom thier profession
that the entire gooey cheese industry would halt to a standstill.
 
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Over-regulation is a potential problem, but not an impossible one. Define the collapse of the entire Gooey Cheese Industry as a type of Gooey Cheese disaster triggering the "everyone outta the pool" rule and most likely it is solved.

It's a fallacy that only those with Gooey Cheese Industry experience have the skill set to regulate that industry. There are parallel industry labor pools to draw from as well as college grads with skills. But no effective regulatory body can survive the incest between itself and the industry it regulates. If that is permitted, every meeting becomes a job interview love fest.

The three years and out rule is essential. Allow people to remain in place any longer, and they begin building fiefdoms. You want your folks to be hyper-motivated to be the best damned regulators on Planet Earth because all regulatory jobs are essentially apprenticeships. Up, down -- or out.

The anti-fraternization rules are also essential and are no privacy issue at all, as long as employees are advised of them before they are hired. As conditions of employment offers, such rules sail right by constitutional muster.

Step Eight is already a requirement and/or a possibility for virtually every federal law enforcement official, because we need to know we can trust those guys. Well, we need to know we can trust our regulators too.

The point of Step Nine is that if an industry desperately needs regulation for all our sakes, it is best not to downstream the regulators into obscurity and hope they do a great job after it all goes dark. The watchers need watching too.

The point of Step Ten is, it matters one helluva lot less what rules are enacted than it does how motivated the regulators are to see them actually enforced. And BTW, the regulators are not necessarially the only ones who must or should write the rules. Congressional subcommittees could write them. A separate agency could write them. Even the Industry itself could write 99% of them. It is all (almost all) about enforcement to me.
 
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Over-regulation is a potential problem, but not an impossible one. Define the collapse of the entire Gooey Cheese Industry as a type of Gooey Cheese disaster triggering the "everyone outta the pool" rule and most likely it is solved.

It's a fallacy that only those with Gooey Cheese Industry experience have the skill set to regulate that industry. There are parallel industry labor pools to draw from as well as college grads with skills. But no effective regulatory body can survive the incest between itself and the industry it regulates. If that is permitted, every meeting becomes a job interview love fest.

The three years and out rule is essential. Allow people to remain in place any longer, and they begin building fiefdoms. You want your folks to be hyper-motivated to be the best damned regulators on Planet Earth because all regulatory jobs are essentially apprenticeships. Up, down -- or out.

The anti-fraternization rules are also essential and are no privacy issue at all, as long as employees are advised of them before they are hired. As conditions of employment offers, such rules sail right by constitutional muster.

Step Eight is already a requirement and/or a possibility for virtually every federal law enforcement official, because we need to know we can trust those guys. Well, we need to know we can trust our regulators too.

The point of Step Nine is that if an industry desperately needs regulation for all our sakes, it is best not to downstream the regulators into obscurity and hope they do a great job after it all goes dark. The watchers need watching too.

The point of Step Ten is, it matters one helluva lot less what rules are enacted than it does how motivated the regulators are to see them actually enforced. And BTW, the regulators are not necessarially the only ones who must or should write the rules. Congressional subcommittees could write them. A separate agency could write them. Even the Industry itself could write 99% of them. It is all (almost all) about enforcement to me.

Over regulation is a huge problem. In any buracracy it is far safer to say "no" than yes. These rules create an agency that would only want people to apply for permits, and not do any actual work. And again, who would want to work for an agency under these rules? The regulations would be made overly harsh, because the rules of the agency are overly harsh.

I still think there is an issue with privacy. In order to avoid it you would have to make the agency a millitary one, as anti-fraternization rules come easy to them.

The object of regulation is not to eliminate hazards. That is impossible. Dumb things happen no matter how hard you try to assure safety. The goal is minimzation of risk in a reasonable fashion related to costs. The old adage that a soild hunk of steel with 4 wheels on it is a safe car, but it really isnt effective. Similar is the fact you can make a car thats "death proof", but it would cost 500k each.

If something is so hazardous that it would require your 10 steps to regulate, it probably isnt worth doing.
 
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Well, I'll admit the thread is called "10 Easy Steps" because it's a snappy title. Not all ten are equally valuable. I might could tolerate fraternization and mebbe go without 1040 audits.

Three years and up, down or out I consider essential, and the Chinese Wall between the industry and the regulators forever and ever is essential.
 
Madeline, I'd just like to thank you for pointing out how little common sense our current regulatory bodies practice. I agree that there must be an impenetrable wall between the regulators and the regulated.

As far as needing nuclear engineers to regulate the nuclear industry. That's mostly hogwash. Most of nuclear engineering is really just regular engineering. Ie, how do you pump X amount of water from point A to point B in Y amount of time? How much pressure can a valve withstand before failing? How much heat energy can a lead shield handle before failing, and how do you dissipate said heat for added safety margin? You don't actually have to be a nuclear engineer to figure this stuff out.
 
Madeline, I'd just like to thank you for pointing out how little common sense our current regulatory bodies practice. I agree that there must be an impenetrable wall between the regulators and the regulated.

As far as needing nuclear engineers to regulate the nuclear industry. That's mostly hogwash. Most of nuclear engineering is really just regular engineering. Ie, how do you pump X amount of water from point A to point B in Y amount of time? How much pressure can a valve withstand before failing? How much heat energy can a lead shield handle before failing, and how do you dissipate said heat for added safety margin? You don't actually have to be a nuclear engineer to figure this stuff out.

I'd rather have experts in thier own field regulating said work. But at least you have an engineer doing it. I can understand why you would want the wall between both groups. But asking for it in reality would make regulations more of a adversarial procedure than it is now. I understand you need some adversarial relationship but when no one trusts the other all you get is burecratic bickering and less real oversight.
 
Madeline, I'd just like to thank you for pointing out how little common sense our current regulatory bodies practice. I agree that there must be an impenetrable wall between the regulators and the regulated.

As far as needing nuclear engineers to regulate the nuclear industry. That's mostly hogwash. Most of nuclear engineering is really just regular engineering. Ie, how do you pump X amount of water from point A to point B in Y amount of time? How much pressure can a valve withstand before failing? How much heat energy can a lead shield handle before failing, and how do you dissipate said heat for added safety margin? You don't actually have to be a nuclear engineer to figure this stuff out.

You also do not have to be an Einstein to record the gauges in a nuclear reactor. Most regulatory horseshit is far too many trips through the old Square Dance with everyone's partner but your own.
 
Madeline, I'd just like to thank you for pointing out how little common sense our current regulatory bodies practice. I agree that there must be an impenetrable wall between the regulators and the regulated.

As far as needing nuclear engineers to regulate the nuclear industry. That's mostly hogwash. Most of nuclear engineering is really just regular engineering. Ie, how do you pump X amount of water from point A to point B in Y amount of time? How much pressure can a valve withstand before failing? How much heat energy can a lead shield handle before failing, and how do you dissipate said heat for added safety margin? You don't actually have to be a nuclear engineer to figure this stuff out.

I'd rather have experts in thier own field regulating said work. But at least you have an engineer doing it. I can understand why you would want the wall between both groups. But asking for it in reality would make regulations more of a adversarial procedure than it is now. I understand you need some adversarial relationship but when no one trusts the other all you get is burecratic bickering and less real oversight.

EXACTLY! Regulation of an industry should never look or feel like a third date with a hot guy.

"Adversarial" is just what we need. Not nut-zo hatred; just suspicion, distrust, and a dash of animosity.
 
Madeline, I'd just like to thank you for pointing out how little common sense our current regulatory bodies practice. I agree that there must be an impenetrable wall between the regulators and the regulated.

As far as needing nuclear engineers to regulate the nuclear industry. That's mostly hogwash. Most of nuclear engineering is really just regular engineering. Ie, how do you pump X amount of water from point A to point B in Y amount of time? How much pressure can a valve withstand before failing? How much heat energy can a lead shield handle before failing, and how do you dissipate said heat for added safety margin? You don't actually have to be a nuclear engineer to figure this stuff out.

I'd rather have experts in thier own field regulating said work. But at least you have an engineer doing it. I can understand why you would want the wall between both groups. But asking for it in reality would make regulations more of a adversarial procedure than it is now. I understand you need some adversarial relationship but when no one trusts the other all you get is burecratic bickering and less real oversight.

EXACTLY! Regulation of an industry should never look or feel like a third date with a hot guy.

"Adversarial" is just what we need. Not nut-zo hatred; just suspicion, distrust, and a dash of animosity.

All that results in is people following the letter of the law and not the spirit. They go through the motions so they "dont piss off that regulatory asshat" in the bare minimum method possible.

Its not like I want a giant circle jerk wth candy gumdrops and rainbows between the regulator and the industry, its just that when people cant trust each other, the industry to be truthful and the regulator to be fair all you get is paperwork compliance and not real understanding of WHY the regulations are there in the first place.

This goes back to your proposed setup. That type of environment would result in the harshest possible regulations, enforced by people whos best interests are served in seeing the industry never produces another widget again as to assure thier job security. If you add in the other idea of non industry people doing the regulating you now have inspections being done by people that are not only hated, but are probably not even professionally respected.
 
"a giant circle jerk wth candy gumdrops and rainbows between the regulator and the industry" is EXACTLY why we have a oil spill several million gallons wide in the Gulf. It is why Bernie Madoff was allowed to perpetrate a Ponzi Scheme of truely historical proportions. It is why United is currently gobbling up Delta as if Mega-Airlines will be so much BETTER for Americans.

Incest or antagonism are the only two choices. There just IS no third option. Regulators need to feel they can succeed and "success" needs to be defined for them other than the way it is NOW.

We have tried the cozey feel-good approach. I believe we can now conclude it has not worked. I say we try the "Hey Fuckwhit, get that damned thing under control NOW" approach.

Not the stuff greeting card authors dream of maybe, but NOT unworkable.
 
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"a giant circle jerk wth candy gumdrops and rainbows between the regulator and the industry" is EXACTLY why we have a oil spill several million gallons wide in the Gulf. It is why Bernie Madoff was allowed to perpetrate a Ponzi Scheme of truely historical proportions. It is why United is currently gobbling up Delta as if Mega-Airlines will be so much BETTER for Americans.

Incest or antagonism are the only two choices. There just IS no third option. Regulators need to feel they can succeed and "success" needs to be defined for them other than the way it is NOW.

We have tried the cozey feel-good approach. I believe we can now conclude it has not worked. I say we try the "Hey Fuckwhit, get that damned thing under control NOW" approach.

Not the stuff greeting card authors dream of maybe, but NOT unworkable.

A very aristotilian viewpoint, in either you can have one or the other. By your view the regulators need to view sucess on often they can screw over the regulees'. If that is the case you would get the situation where trying to subterfuge the regulations would be more worth it than following them.

In the cases you gave above, in the BP spill, yes it may end up that negligence caused it, but as an Engineer I also know you cannot eliminate risk, and ocassionally things just break. In the Madoff case you are dealing with the esoteric world of global finance, and in that reality for every reg you come up with someone smarter than the regulator will soon find a way around it. in the Case of the airline thing there may be an anti-trust issue there, and current laws should be able to handle it.
 
"a giant circle jerk wth candy gumdrops and rainbows between the regulator and the industry" is EXACTLY why we have a oil spill several million gallons wide in the Gulf. It is why Bernie Madoff was allowed to perpetrate a Ponzi Scheme of truely historical proportions. It is why United is currently gobbling up Delta as if Mega-Airlines will be so much BETTER for Americans.

Incest or antagonism are the only two choices. There just IS no third option. Regulators need to feel they can succeed and "success" needs to be defined for them other than the way it is NOW.

We have tried the cozey feel-good approach. I believe we can now conclude it has not worked. I say we try the "Hey Fuckwhit, get that damned thing under control NOW" approach.

Not the stuff greeting card authors dream of maybe, but NOT unworkable.

A very aristotilian viewpoint, in either you can have one or the other. By your view the regulators need to view sucess on often they can screw over the regulees'. If that is the case you would get the situation where trying to subterfuge the regulations would be more worth it than following them.

In the cases you gave above, in the BP spill, yes it may end up that negligence caused it, but as an Engineer I also know you cannot eliminate risk, and ocassionally things just break. In the Madoff case you are dealing with the esoteric world of global finance, and in that reality for every reg you come up with someone smarter than the regulator will soon find a way around it. in the Case of the airline thing there may be an anti-trust issue there, and current laws should be able to handle it.

martybegan, in your world no form of regulation is workable. Our choices are ineffectual regulators or nothing? Really?

I beg to differ. Tough does not preclude reasonable or fair or pro-business. It means TOUGH. As opposed to crawling all over industry CEOs like a cat in heat.

Empty the SEC, the FDA, the other regulatory bodies. Fire EVERYONE. Using my Plan above, or as modified, hire a bunch of fresh young lawyers with stars in their eyes and fire in their bellies. Grab a few old ADAs with terrific prosecution records...not for plea bargains, but for actual trial work. I could staff these agencies for about 1/10th of what is being paid now AND get an enormous step up in quality.

Regulatory law work should have the same patina as a federal court clerkship. Prestigious, low-paid and short term. A career maker. Not with the regulated industry but perhaps with other Federal regulatory bodies, or in politics, or private practice.

"I began my career at the SEC" should be a source of PRIDE for a former employee, not shame. These are supposed to be the Young Turks we send into battle to fight the good fight with the Titans. Not a bunch of over-paid middle aged porn addicts too lazy and frightened to even try and find a courthouse.

A high school kidlet with great attention to detail could've stopped Bernie Madoff. He was reported to the SEC at least five times in the few years before his scheme collapsed. If the SEC lawyers had not orgasmed at their first glimpse of Bernie's big walnut desk, they might have bothered asking a question or two...and then, it would all have been over but the crying.

We mystify some forms of legal/professional work as if the men and women doing it are a different breed of humanoid. They aren't smarter. They have some special training but really, when they succeed it's because they put their backs into it and worked like dogs. Same way great legal work has always been done.
 
"a giant circle jerk wth candy gumdrops and rainbows between the regulator and the industry" is EXACTLY why we have a oil spill several million gallons wide in the Gulf. It is why Bernie Madoff was allowed to perpetrate a Ponzi Scheme of truely historical proportions. It is why United is currently gobbling up Delta as if Mega-Airlines will be so much BETTER for Americans.

Incest or antagonism are the only two choices. There just IS no third option. Regulators need to feel they can succeed and "success" needs to be defined for them other than the way it is NOW.

We have tried the cozey feel-good approach. I believe we can now conclude it has not worked. I say we try the "Hey Fuckwhit, get that damned thing under control NOW" approach.

Not the stuff greeting card authors dream of maybe, but NOT unworkable.

A very aristotilian viewpoint, in either you can have one or the other. By your view the regulators need to view sucess on often they can screw over the regulees'. If that is the case you would get the situation where trying to subterfuge the regulations would be more worth it than following them.

In the cases you gave above, in the BP spill, yes it may end up that negligence caused it, but as an Engineer I also know you cannot eliminate risk, and ocassionally things just break. In the Madoff case you are dealing with the esoteric world of global finance, and in that reality for every reg you come up with someone smarter than the regulator will soon find a way around it. in the Case of the airline thing there may be an anti-trust issue there, and current laws should be able to handle it.

martybegan, in your world no form of regulation is workable. Our choices are ineffectual regulators or nothing? Really?

I beg to differ. Tough does not preclude reasonable or fair or pro-business. It means TOUGH. As opposed to crawling all over industry CEOs like a cat in heat.

Empty the SEC, the FDA, the other regulatory bodies. Fire EVERYONE. Using my Plan above, or as modified, hire a bunch of fresh young lawyers with stars in their eyes and fire in their bellies. Grab a few old ADAs with terrific prosecution records...not for plea bargains, but for actual trial work. I could staff these agencies for about 1/10th of what is being paid now AND get an enormous step up in quality.

Regulatory law work should have the same patina as a federal court clerkship. Prestigious, low-paid and short term. A career maker. Not with the regulated industry but perhaps with other Federal regulatory bodies, or in politics, or private practice.

"I began my career at the SEC" should be a source of PRIDE for a former employee, not shame. These are supposed to be the Young Turks we send into battle to fight the good fight with the Titans. Not a bunch of over-paid middle aged porn addicts too lazy and frightened to even try and find a courthouse.

A high school kidlet with great attention to detail could've stopped Bernie Madoff. He was reported to the SEC at least five times in the few years before his scheme collapsed. If the SEC lawyers had not orgasmed at their first glimpse of Bernie's big walnut desk, they might have bothered asking a question or two...and then, it would all have been over but the crying.

We mystify some forms of legal/professional work as if the men and women doing it are a different breed of humanoid. They aren't smarter. They have some special training but really, when they succeed it's because they put their backs into it and worked like dogs. Same way great legal work has always been done.

Lawyers can be involved but please dont make them the majority. I work in Engineering and when lawyers get involved people worry more about not getting sued instead of promoting actual safe working evironments.

I think there is a model of regulation that works, and it is close to what we have. We have to remember that there are thousands of off shore rigs working just fine. The issue is this accident was a major clusterfuck. Once a report is made we will probably see a cascade of failures that lead to the disaster. They key will be to determine if there was negligence, or if it was one of those screw ups that occurs despite your best effort to stop it. I have a feeling some negligence will be involved, but no Malice. One cannot eliminate all risk. Taking some of your concepts and adding them to the current system might make it better, but might make it worse as well.
 
A very aristotilian viewpoint, in either you can have one or the other. By your view the regulators need to view sucess on often they can screw over the regulees'. If that is the case you would get the situation where trying to subterfuge the regulations would be more worth it than following them.

In the cases you gave above, in the BP spill, yes it may end up that negligence caused it, but as an Engineer I also know you cannot eliminate risk, and ocassionally things just break. In the Madoff case you are dealing with the esoteric world of global finance, and in that reality for every reg you come up with someone smarter than the regulator will soon find a way around it. in the Case of the airline thing there may be an anti-trust issue there, and current laws should be able to handle it.

martybegan, in your world no form of regulation is workable. Our choices are ineffectual regulators or nothing? Really?

I beg to differ. Tough does not preclude reasonable or fair or pro-business. It means TOUGH. As opposed to crawling all over industry CEOs like a cat in heat.

Empty the SEC, the FDA, the other regulatory bodies. Fire EVERYONE. Using my Plan above, or as modified, hire a bunch of fresh young lawyers with stars in their eyes and fire in their bellies. Grab a few old ADAs with terrific prosecution records...not for plea bargains, but for actual trial work. I could staff these agencies for about 1/10th of what is being paid now AND get an enormous step up in quality.

Regulatory law work should have the same patina as a federal court clerkship. Prestigious, low-paid and short term. A career maker. Not with the regulated industry but perhaps with other Federal regulatory bodies, or in politics, or private practice.

"I began my career at the SEC" should be a source of PRIDE for a former employee, not shame. These are supposed to be the Young Turks we send into battle to fight the good fight with the Titans. Not a bunch of over-paid middle aged porn addicts too lazy and frightened to even try and find a courthouse.

A high school kidlet with great attention to detail could've stopped Bernie Madoff. He was reported to the SEC at least five times in the few years before his scheme collapsed. If the SEC lawyers had not orgasmed at their first glimpse of Bernie's big walnut desk, they might have bothered asking a question or two...and then, it would all have been over but the crying.

We mystify some forms of legal/professional work as if the men and women doing it are a different breed of humanoid. They aren't smarter. They have some special training but really, when they succeed it's because they put their backs into it and worked like dogs. Same way great legal work has always been done.

Lawyers can be involved but please dont make them the majority. I work in Engineering and when lawyers get involved people worry more about not getting sued instead of promoting actual safe working evironments.

I think there is a model of regulation that works, and it is close to what we have. We have to remember that there are thousands of off shore rigs working just fine. The issue is this accident was a major clusterfuck. Once a report is made we will probably see a cascade of failures that lead to the disaster. They key will be to determine if there was negligence, or if it was one of those screw ups that occurs despite your best effort to stop it. I have a feeling some negligence will be involved, but no Malice. One cannot eliminate all risk. Taking some of your concepts and adding them to the current system might make it better, but might make it worse as well.

Alas, we must agree to disagree. A regulated person should have some fear of his regulator. Lawyers are trained to, among other things, examine reports of compliance and ascertain whether or not the compliance is substantial and satisfactory. Yes we need engineers. And farmers, and plumbers and chefs. But we need lawyers in every regulatory agency as well -- hungry motherfuckers, who will fight balls to the wall to stop or punish a public abuse of the sort their agency was created to prevent.

There SHOULD be fear of litigation among regulated persons whose conduct falls below acceptable limits. I'm just not seeing the down side to such fear -- presumably when present, it inhibits bad acts, which INCLUDE acts of negligence or gross negligence such as almost certainly led to the BP oil spill.
 
Supposedly there will be challenger like commission, which is a good thing.
 

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