If you heard the news about GE getting out of finance to go back to 'making things', Paul Krugman has a take on it you may find interesting. From his blog...
There are two big lessons from GE’s announcement that it is planning to get out of the finance business. First, the much maligned Dodd-Frank financial reform is doing some real good. Second, Republicans have been talking nonsense on the subject. OK, maybe point #2 isn’t really news, but it’s important to understand just what kind of nonsense they’ve been talking.
...the more or less official GOP line is that the crisis had nothing to do with runaway banks — it was all about Barney Frank somehow forcing poor innocent bankers to make loans to Those People. And the line on the right also asserts that the SIFI designation is actually an invitation to behave badly, that institutions so designated know that they are too big to fail and can start living high on the moral hazard hog.
What's really going on, as Krugman notes, is that Dodd-Frank financial reforms have changed the playing field to the point that GE has found the game is no longer rigged in their favor, so they're getting out. (And it's not like they're hurting all that bad -
see who takes #1 on Bernie Sanders list.) There's some fundamental principles at work.
Kauffman's Rules 8 and 11 seem to apply here. Via Sara Robinson...
8. Look for high leverage points. Nearly every feedback system has weak spots. These are almost always the control points which measure the system's behavior and determine its response to change. The best way to change a system's behavior is either to change the "setting" of the control unit or to change the information which the control unit receives. If you want to make a cold house warmer, turn the thermostat up or stick an ice pack on it, but don't build a fire in an inefficient fireplace--it will do little if any good.
And...
11. Don't try to control the players, just change the rules. When the National Football League wanted to make football games a bit more exciting, it didn't order quarterbacks to throw more passes. Instead, it changed the rules slightly so that pass plays would have a better chance of working. If the, league had gone the first route, teams would have looked for ways to evade the order, perhaps by throwing a few more short, safe passes, and the game would still have been dull. In the actual case, however, teams were aggressive about taking advantage of the new opportunities to pass. The same principle applies in economics, politics, science, education, and many other areas. If the system tries to make choices for people, the people will try to outwit the system. It is much more effective to change the "rules of the" game" so that it is to most people's advantage to make the choices that are good for the whole system.
(You can find all four parts of Robinson's series on Kauffman's Rules with commentary on each at
Orcinus;
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4.)
While Dodd-Frank gets complaints from the Left that it didn't go far enough, it would be much more productive to point out that it is already making a difference for the better - hence the determined effort by the usual suspects to roll it back as far as possible. The market fundamentalism cult of the GOP holds that government has no role in regulating business, that markets are inherently self-correcting if left alone. This is not only nonsense, it is dangerous nonsense. The only way one can argue for this belief is by either ignoring history or distorting it all out of recognition - which pretty much sums up the GOP approach to every disaster they're responsible for.
It's taken decades of digging to put us in the hole we're currently in - and it's been a bipartisan affair all too often. (TPP really, Mr. President?) Nonetheless, there are signs that the light is beginning to dawn. (YES on boosting Social Security!) Guy Kawasaki some years ago compared competing with IBM (during his time at Apple Computer) to "putting your head in a vice and tightening it as hard as you can stand - and then tightening it some more" IIRC. We're currently at that stage with the conservative narrative and framing that has been force-fed to us for so many years; change isn't necessarily going to be fast - but it can happen. Let's recognize when it does - and keep building momentum.