> Thats what you want to believe, but the money they get to spend on the audit all came from customers, they didnt come from the pockets of management. So if you want to believe the money was not taken from customers in this instance, it was in another instance, and now the problem of analysis expands into other areas.
> Regulations affect company profits in a different variety of circumstances: it depends on the elasticity of the supply. If you put a regulation on ALL banks, then there is no chance in supply, meaning that the consumer bears the entire cost of regulation.
I think that's a fair expansion of scope, but something unmentioned here is that customers are not uniform in benefits received. Paying for the regulation ends up a bit like paying for insurance here - you may pay more this year, but it can save you against anything catastrophic.
> Remember how they just made it costly to have an account with little money with the bank?
Not at all banks by any means. Different banks offer different perks and spread around the cost differently, turning knobs like interest, fees, service quality, etc. There are still a good deal of options in the sector.
> But the original thread made a claim it cannot sustain and i called it out on it.
This has divulged a bit, though in interesting ways, so not without reason, but which claim is false specifically?
>I think that's a fair expansion of scope, but something unmentioned here is that customers are not uniform in benefits received. Paying for the regulation ends up a bit like paying for insurance here - you may pay more this year, but it can save you against anything catastrophic.
That was my point - you need to assess this and then add it to cost benefit analysis. Saying that it's worth it just because caught a random error that amounts to 300M$ is very bad reasoning that can be used to justify very bad legislation. And unfortunately people accept this kind of reasoning from politicians. I expect more from HN.
I never made that argument though. My original post was simply stating that there are regulations that can cost more to the companies than it saves consumers that are still good. A simple "is this profitable to the company" test is not a good measure for a regulation.
> As with your post, this isn't defending all regulations or that specific parent argument, just pointing out that the cost on the company being regulated versus money saved is not a valid metric for deciding if a regulation is needed. The regulation accounts for many more intangibles such as fair customer protections, and again, is not aimed at the value of the regulation for the company being regulated, though a regulation that causes a needed private business to be unprofitable is likely not sound.
> Regulations affect company profits in a different variety of circumstances: it depends on the elasticity of the supply. If you put a regulation on ALL banks, then there is no chance in supply, meaning that the consumer bears the entire cost of regulation.
I think that's a fair expansion of scope, but something unmentioned here is that customers are not uniform in benefits received. Paying for the regulation ends up a bit like paying for insurance here - you may pay more this year, but it can save you against anything catastrophic.
> Remember how they just made it costly to have an account with little money with the bank?
Not at all banks by any means. Different banks offer different perks and spread around the cost differently, turning knobs like interest, fees, service quality, etc. There are still a good deal of options in the sector.
> But the original thread made a claim it cannot sustain and i called it out on it.
This has divulged a bit, though in interesting ways, so not without reason, but which claim is false specifically?