Jerome is a case in point in the energy debate, contrast this for example with the totally obvious problems with unemployment measure: only outsiders were pointing out the problems (including me) and yet the issue will reach visibility only after insiders start embracing our positions (see my latest blog post).
That's also why I strongly favour more freedom of expression for public servants and whenever possible in the private sector.
It's not because you publicize/criticize the government policies that you will not apply the policy as professionally expected.
See for instance this story from last yeat about destination clauses in gas contracts. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Which pretty much reduces democracy to absurdity, sadly. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
And then you have to cast one vote for one guy based on a multitude of issuses, assuming you are aware and understand and care about a multitude of issues.
Which means electing people on their character is as good as anything else. Ultimately, the best you can do is to choose people that you can trust will make the right (informed) decisions when the time comes, and that will be transparent about it. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Another point -- sometimes, the insiders would benefit from having the rules of their game changed, as part of broad reforms, to make it less attractive. They'd exploit their capital (intellectual, reputational, political, or financial) to play a different game, while benefiting from the broad reforms.
A non-debased economic thinker would also give weight to some hard-to-quantify benefits: The value a person places on the good of others, and of having done good.
The above suggests that an enlightened, rational group of insiders should often see "an attack on their business" as a good thing.
And yet another, less related, point -- I am confident that business leaders often inadvertently regard (1) the effect on their business of a general prohibition against something they find profitable as equivalent to (2) the effect of a unilateral relinquishment.
Think of a change that raises production costs in a competitive market. Case (1): with zero price elasticity, zero effect; with moderate price elasticity, a moderate effect. Case (2): the business is uncompetitive, and fails.
Treating case (1) as if it were case (2) -- and there must surely be at least a tendency to do so -- greatly increases the perceived incentives of businesses to oppose virtually all policies that constrain their actions in the public interest.
If this point were more widely understood, the push and pull of politics would produce better results and the world would be a better place. ----------
I seem to be in a moral-philosophical mood again. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
Alertness at all times, my friend, and you too can see the ever-elusive Alert Media as they patrol the globe and scan the heavens on our behalf. But first, you must believe. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
But I agree in some case only insiders will be aware of some of the arguments but I think it's really marginal (I'm excluding whistleblowing in case of illegal practices of course).
