Originally Posted by Austin
Originally Posted by La Texican
All of that was complicated enough before corporations became increasingly international. Now you have these corporate leaders deciding what's best for their employees and customers and living in this global country instead of a homogenous melting pot like America. Meanwhile the US government is trying to exert authority over the rights and responsibilities of these international companies and their siblings the American people. Which is why government leaders are supposed to be good decision makers, or why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

On the one hand, you need detailed knowledge of an industry to regulate it, then you need detailed knowledge of the regulations to abide by them.

It goes both ways, though. Someone works for a company then works for the government, then goes back.

Yes. What I was getting at with externalizing costs.

From the negative externality page:
"A business may purposely underfund one part of their business, such as their pension funds, in order to push the costs onto someone else, creating an externality. Here, the "cost" is that of providing minimum social welfare or retirement income; economists more frequently attribute this problem to the category of moral hazards."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard