Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More
WASHINGTON — Giants in telecommunications, like Verizon and AT&T, will not have to take "reasonable measures" to ensure that their customers' Social Security numbers, web browsing history and other personal information are not stolen or accidentally released.
Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will not be punished, at least for now, for not collecting extra money from customers to cover potential losses from certain kinds of high-risk trades that helped unleash the 2008 financial crisis.
And Social Security Administration data will no longer be used to try to block individuals with disabling mental health issues from buying handguns, nor will hunters be banned from using lead-based bullets, which can accidentally poison wildlife, on 150 million acres of federal lands.
These are just a few of the more than 90 regulations that federal agencies and the Republican-controlled Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed in the month and a half since President Trump took office, according to a tally by The New York Times.
The emerging effort — dozens more rules could be eliminated in the coming weeks — is one of the most significant shifts in regulatory policy in recent decades. It is the leading edge of what Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's chief strategist, described late last month as "the deconstruction of the administrative state."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-deregulation-guns-wall-st-climate.html
In the submitter's opinion - some of these rollbacks are mistakes. Others, though, should never have been passed. For instance, the Social Security Administration being drafted into notifying law enforcement agencies of HIPAA protected information. The MPG requirements on American auto makers? The fuel efficient cars are available, but no one wants them. Left and right alike, buyers demand the gas guzzlers. Banking regulations, though, should stay in place. Trump should know that the bankers won't regulate themselves. FFS, he saw the same meltdown that we all saw in 2008!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:41AM
The wealthy can on average better weather deep recessions than the rest. One is more likely to want to gamble if the price of a bad bet is relatively small.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Saturday March 11 2017, @09:03AM (16 children)
> The MPG requirements on American auto makers? The fuel efficient cars are available, but no one wants them. Left and right alike, buyers demand the gas guzzlers.
Then the price of gas should include a significant portion of the Pentagon's budget, to reflect the actual costs of having cheap gas to waste in ridiculous oversized monstrosities.
Let's say half a Pentagon, or about 1000 dollars per car per year, adjusted by the amount of guzzling?
Then we'll revisit the gas tax for road maintenance, to reflect the exponentially bigger damage that heavier vehicles cause.
Remember how the guzzlers had a bad time when W got us over $4 per gallon? Make people pay for the externalities, and watch demand plummet.
Amusingly, it's not the silly tax-friendly coastal liberals who prefer the guzzlers being subsidized.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:36PM
Then the price of gas should include a significant portion of the Pentagon's budget, to reflect the actual costs of having cheap gas to waste in ridiculous oversized monstrosities.
It already does. And let us keep in mind that US military spending and military activity is greatly affected by a bunch of corrupt and/or incompetent practices that have nothing to do with protecting oil infrastructure. If I get $1 million in benefit from a $100 million spending, why should I be on the hook for the latter amount?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:45PM (3 children)
I'd be more than happy to buy a low-MPG car when automakers decide to build an affordable electric/hybrid car that doesn't look like a faggotmobile.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:51PM
Gosh, you seem awfully worried about the appearance of your sexuality.
(Score: 2) by nethead on Saturday March 11 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)
I'll be happy to buy one when they invest in infrastructure so I'm not getting my kidneys knocked to hell trying to get to work.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 11 2017, @09:49PM
My employer has multiple chargers. Actually, a lot of places around here do.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:10PM (10 children)
"exponentially bigger damage that heavier vehicles cause."
Actually - that exponent may be smaller than you think. It's the pounds per square inch of tire tread that does the damage. But, I'll go along with the added fuel tax. People who can't afford an additional $1000 per year in taxes will go to the smaller sized vehicle so that they can pay less fuel tax.
So, what do you think is reasonable? $1.50/gallon infrastructure tax?
As for the silly tax-friendly coastal liberals?
http://therightscoop.com/smug-liberal-journalists-complete-meltdown-john-ekdahls-simple-question/ [therightscoop.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:42PM (4 children)
You're quoting therightscoop.com . . . seriously?
You might as well be quoting some slimeball from diddlethechildren.com as an "unbiased" reply to a post questioning the effects of childhood molestation on people later in life. You'd get about the same level of dishonesty, and of sliminess.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:04PM (3 children)
Yeah - I read a lot of stuff. I've posted a submission from NYT, for instance. I've posted submissions from left-leaning media. I've posted submissions from right-leaning media. I've posted submissions from foreign news sources.
If I've violated your "safe space" or something, then I've done my good deed for the day. No need to thank me - violating special snowflakes is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. I invite you to get out of your echo chamber, and violate yourself a little bit. That will save me some work!
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:36PM (2 children)
Your article was play by play of a twitter fight.
Seriously you're the snowflake that's tumblr shit right there. Just be a man and admit it was fucking stupid .
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 13 2017, @01:19PM (1 child)
In spite of your almost incomprehensible name, I wouldn't call you an "it".
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Tuesday March 14 2017, @09:53PM
Such wit!
If you don't know what an i286 is or why anyone would WRiTE LiKE THiS you probably should fuckoff back to infowars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @05:38PM (4 children)
> that exponent may be smaller than you think.
Actually, based on experiments, the exponent is in the range of 5 (five) for the actual load on each tire. Thus nearly all road damage is done by heavy trucks. And a truck that is 10% over the legal weight does approximately 1.1 x 10^5 more damage than a truck at the legal weight.
If you need a thought experiment, consider a road bicycle that runs at 120 psi (lbs/in-sq) or 8 bar. The contact pressure with these very thin flexible tires is nearly the same as the air pressure. But bicycles don't do *any* appreciable damage to a road that is designed for cars & trucks. One simple mechanism is that the road surface is thick and has some bending (beaming) strength--it takes a high load to bend the road enough to exceed its elastic limit and start a crack.
There are plenty of other arguments against using light trucks and SUVs instead of passenger cars, but not road damage.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:14PM
OK - the range of 5 - I could argue that some, but it's close enough to reasonable.
Now - where do the taxes come from that pays for the roads? You've surely noticed that diesel fuel is higher priced than gasoline - despite the fact that diesel is a "waste product" in the refining of gasoline.
Each and every truck also pays highway use taxes. Licensing fees are at least five times higher than for private vehicles. On a single cross country run, one 18-wheeler will pay more taxes than your personally owned vehicle will pay all year.
Enough on the issue whether trucks pay their "fair share". Those costs are passed on to the consumer anyway. But, now, let's imagine that there were no trucks. You go to WalMart, and there is no coffee. Ooops - I've already screwed that up. No trucks - so there was no car at the auto dealer for you to buy. There was no gas at the gas station for you to fuel the car you don't have anyway. Hmmmm - no trucks. It just wouldn't be the world we know without trucks.
Now, if you point to trains - well - we would still be in a world of hurt. Trucks are so ubiquitous because rail transport is so unreliable in this country. Rail had it in the bag, they ruled heavy transport, until they screwed up so badly, so many times.
Send a railcar to the Mexican border to pick up a load of lettuce, and it MIGHT make it to the east coast and to market sometime this month. Send a truck to Yuma for a load of lettuce, and that lettuce will be at the market in two or three days, depending on whether it has team drivers or not.
Despite the fact that I drove trucks, I really like the idea of using rails to move freight. It's to bad they are so badly mismanaged. If all heavy freight moved by rail, the infrastructure would be a lot easier and cheaper to maintain.
But, please, remember that the trucks pay their way, and more than pay their way. The tax system has been made a lot simpler in the past 25 years or so, but it's still very expensive. The more they simplify the taxes, the more they increase the taxes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:23PM (2 children)
I hope you're not getting your figures from the same place as these people - https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ [streets.mn]
My first question was, "WTF is a 9 ton big-rig?" A ten ton truck is a local delivery truck, and it DOES NOT do that much damage, comparatively speaking.
Same numbers being used here - http://pedalfortcollins.com/greatest-demand-on-tax-dollars/ [pedalfortcollins.com]
Seriously, someone is cooking numbers here.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
Sorry, bad memory, not 5, more like 4th power of the load. Here's one reference (Google's html rendering of a pdf):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hia5vrAGNBgJ:www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx%3Fitemid%3D1586+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us [googleusercontent.com]
Or, the pdf if you prefer nice formatting http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=1586 [nvfnorden.org]
Google search string I used:
pavement damage vs load cebon
(David Cebon has published some of the basic references on this topic)
3.2 Relative effects of different axle loads
For pavement design, but also to determine the pavement wear effect of different tyres, the pavement wear effects of different axle loads have to be determined. Generally this is described by a Load Equivalency Factor (LEF), where an axle load is said to be equivalent (producing equal pavement wear) to a number of applications of a reference (standard) axle load. The most well-known of such a LEF is the so called “fourth power law” which is expressed mathematically as follows
Nref .| Wx . | 4
. = | . . | {my best attempt at ascii math, the dots try to control the whitespace}
Nx . | Wref |
here Wx and Wref are axle loads and Nx and Nref are the corresponding number of load applications. The exponent 4 in the fourth power law was found in the AASHO Road Test, carried out in USA between 1958-1960.. However, it was not strictly constant in that test but varied from about 3.6 to 4.6. Later experimental and theoretical research has indicated greater variability in the exponent, but has not been conclusive. As an example, it was found in the OECD FORCE project that the exponent depends also on the extent of distress, the exponent being smaller in earlier phases than in later phases of failure. It must be understood that the fourth power law includes all distress modes. The most important at the AASHO road test were rutting (caused by subgrade deformation) and roughness (unevenness) of the road. Cracking had a minor effect and deformation of bituminous mixtures was not important.
When individual distress modes are considered, different exponent values are found. E.g. COST 334 reports that cracking of bituminous layers has a value of 4 − 7, permanent deformation of the subgrade has an exponent of perhaps 3 − 4 and permanent deformation of bituminous layers a value of 1 − 2. As these values depend on many factors (a.o. material variations) and are not fully known, the stated values should be regarded as “best estimates” [3]
Years ago I had reason to study some of the literature, very interesting. The pavement testing machine set up at a government test lab included some very clever (and large) machines that repeatedly rolled loaded tires/axles over pavement samples. Over years of testing they varied the load and also the pavement (including base materials, etc). Good, well funded, big government science.
Roads are a big deal (big $$$ spent to build them), there is a lot of on-going research. Here is one page that links to hundreds of research papers:
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/pub_listing.cfm [dot.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:20AM
Somewhat like you, I've "studied" this stuff in the past. That line from the Matrix, "I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." It applies here. I just don't have the time and energy to dive deep into that hole again.
"As an example, it was found in the OECD FORCE project that the exponent depends also on the extent of distress,"
That bit is the reason why it is so criminal of our politicians to allow the infrastructure to deteriorate due to politics. On a well maintained road, trucks do "X" amount of damage. But ona poorly maintained road, that damage increases tremendously, so that it might be 3X, 5X, or even 10X. Better to take up the road surface, and replace it with a gravel road in some cases!
One thing I can tell you with certainty, is that the politicians never give the trucks a break on taxes. The taxes are collected, day in, and day out, 365 days per year. Billions of dollars flow in to the state coffers, in every state, every year, but the money doesn't flow back out into the infrastructure.
When all the analysis is done, any honest researcher will see that the trucks pay for the infrastructure, continuously, but the politicians find reasons and excuses to use the money elsewhere.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:43PM
Banking regulations, though, should stay in place. Trump should know that the bankers won't regulate themselves. FFS, he saw the same meltdown that we all saw in 2008!
Going into the 2007-2008 real estate crisis, the banking industry was already heavily regulated. It just wasn't heavily regulated in a way that reduced risk of bank failures. The key regulation that reduces the occurrence and extent of bank failures is higher reserve.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:32PM (4 children)
The MPG rules are good - they impose parameters that challenge engineers to do great things (or more accurately, force the bean counters to pay up in order to let the engineers to meet the challenge). The only people the MPG rules, are the bean counters and CEOs who instead of investing in the future, will pocket the research funds for themselves.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:34PM (3 children)
preview. use preview. Let me make that more readable:
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:35PM (2 children)
fuck
The only people the MPG rules HURT, are the bean counters and CEOs who, in the absence of such rules, would simply pocket the research funds for themselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:35PM
I blame it on the anticipation of DST.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @05:44PM
Exactly. The mpg rules (USA "CAFE") have, at least in part, contributed to lower total USA gasoline consumption. And this lower demand (along with increases in supply) gives us the current low price of oil and gasoline. It's a combination of "efficiency" and "drill baby, drill" -- both contribute (but I don't have a reference that attempts to separate out the two effects.)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:42PM
these examples are chosen by the scum at the nytimes to rile up a certain class of constituent. That being said, i don't want the spying whores at the telecoms getting away with it. I also don't want the fed gov telling businesses what to do, generally speaking. These companies just need to be accountable to their customers. get rid of the liability protection and i won't mind the loosening of regulations, assuming the courts, etc are made fair. also, i'm a strong supporter of gun rights. 98% of people would probably consider me extreme, but not allowing people with actual, serious mental illness to own guns is completely constitutional (ironclad protections would have to be put in place) . i'm not in favor of any one felony being considered grounds for denying gun rights and no drug "crimes" should count either. The founders said something along the lines of "known degenerates" or "career criminals" not "victims of unconstitutional state predation". i also believe that individuals should be able to have the same weapons(small arms for sure) that any individual soldier has access to as the founders freaking said. These rights are guaranteed for responsible free citizens. I also don't want lead in the environment but i'm ignorant on the whole situation. As an individual i would pay more for lead free bullets assuming the difference was at least somewhat reasonable. As far as the banks go, don't get me started. We first have to get rid of the fed and prosecute all of them on charges of sedition. Then get rid of fractional reserve banking nationally. then we'll talk about various specific regulations. None of these politicians are radical enough. The debate is purposefully designed as farce to keep us arguing about bullshit.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:57PM
Companies have proven time and time again that money trumps the environment and even the health of their customers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @05:52PM
Repealing the blacklist rule --
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-employment-regulation-idUSKBN16D2T1 [reuters.com]
Republicans in the U.S. Senate passed a measure to eliminate an Obama administration rule that would require prospective federal contractors to report violations of more than a dozen U.S. labor and employment laws.
On a 49-48 vote, the Senate endorsed a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the contractor disclosure rule. The U.S. House of Representatives approved it last month, so all that is left to kill the regulation is President Donald Trump's signature on the resolution.
The resolution targeting the contractor regulation, dubbed the “blacklisting rule” by critics, is a part of a larger Republican effort to use the CRA to rollback a swath of federal regulations finalized in the last seven months of the Obama administration.
Now it's OK to take federal contracts and not worry about abusing your employees...
TFA is from March 6, this may have already been signed by his orangeness?
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:30PM
The fuel efficient cars are available, but no one wants them.
I, for one, want a fuel efficient car. As soon as my small 2002 sedan stops moving, I will buy one.
If the cost of ownership is reasonable and I have enough money, I will go full electric.