Hacker News Reader

Comment by notjoedimaggio | Hacker News Reader

I agree in theory, but the reality is that these companies made large investments under one set of legislation.

If a society flips and completely changes the economic/legislative landscape under which companies operate, it creates a very unstable business environment and discourages capex especially.

This would not be good for the long term economic health.

View on HN

They made large investments under laws they lobbied for and made by politicians that were paid for. I have no qualms reversing a horrific abuse of lobbying and actions of unethical state congress members. They got to benefit from this farce for decades, it's time to shut it down.

"Let It Burn" is not the most airtight of analyses of a complex economic system.

It's not like they would repeal the law and all private dealerships would be shut down the next day. They would continue as usual, probably for several years, and most would eventually get phased out. It's not letting it burn, it's just letting it die the death it should have died decades ago.

Laws change. Invested money by big corporations is not a valid reason to keep them. In fact it's pretty sad that this would even be a point of consideration.

That's like saying that Comcast and Verizon accepted public money to roll out infrastructure and invested their money in it. Therefore, we probably shouldn't address their artificial monopoly, because they invested money in their monopoly.

Laws can and are written with long-term timelines in mind. If you're dismantling X, Y and Z, you could specify that X kicks in two years from now, Y starts five years from now, and Z won't kick in until seven years has passed.

Removing protectionist laws that allow certain businesses to flourish by restricting competition should only create uncertainty in other areas where there are similar laws. I don't believe there are many such areas. The only other industry I can think of where there are mandated middlemen is alcohol, and it would be great to fix that too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com