You, obviously, are not a fan of Milton Friedman, otherwise you would understand that regulation begs for more regulation to the point where a free market cannot function anymore. After all, what does free stand for in a regulated market. Of course people will get hurt sometimes, more than they anticipated when they took the risk, but by its nature, the free market will take care of that, while regulation will just create more distortion and mis-allocation of resources.
Of course, the state is more than happy to regulate everything to the hilt - that way politicians show that they care about people that "voted" them in, but we all know that the paternalistic reasoning never works. We are all mature human beings that like to think for themselves.
Of course, the state is more than happy to regulate everything to the hilt - that way politicians show that they care about people that "voted" them in, but we all know that the paternalistic reasoning never works. We are all mature human beings that like to think for themselves.
Quote from asiaprop:
I think its you who does not really comprehend how financial markets ought to function. People get rewarded for the amount of risk they assume. The payoff may be larger for more risk, taken, but it may also result in a larger loss. This is as far as theory goes. Practically, we need to go a step further: If there is a chance that the actual risk taker does not assume all the risk but that other, unrelated parties get harmed, then something needs to be done. That is exactly the original idea of regulation and how it generally works. If regulators do not care that some hedge funds collaborate to drive down a whole currency or companies in a concerted effort then that harms a lot of unrelated people and this has nothing anymore to do with sound economic principles. The same applies to our Mr. Always-Overhedged: If he sells calls and the next morning the company he traded is taken over and the stock surges 30% then he is forced to pay up. What if he does not have the funds to cover the loss? Declare personal bankruptcy? Sure, but thats only one part. Who covered the rest? The brokerage, other brokerage customers, an insurance policy held by the brokerage, society at large?
Markets are not efficient nor do people behave rational. I and nobody would care whether dudes with 100:1 leverage kill themselves BUT I and others do care when others get hurt. And government investors get rewarded for the risk of a AAA rated government fixed income product not a subprime mortgage loan or CDS contract. When money raised through the issuance of US treasury bonds is used to prop up a dead beat economy and especially dead beat companies then Chinese and Japanese and German investors have EVERY RIGHT to start asking questions. I thought that was pretty clear to most, apparently not so...