Government promotion of e-business

[santoto]

After the credit crunch, and after the US elections, there is a lot of talk from politicians about a greater role for government in the financial services sector – regulating, controlling, policing and so on. In other words, more government after a couple of decades when the trend was for less. Yet, during those same decades, many governments have put a great deal of effort into encouraging the development of ICT skills in general and e-business in particular. Is this really the role of government, or should it be left to business? And even if it was a legitimate activity for government, were the initiatives really necessary or would it all have happened anyway? Have government initiatives in this area really achieved anything, were they an irrelevance, or did they simply get in the way?

[surreypcsupport]

After the credit crunch, and after the US elections, there is a lot of talk from politicians about a greater role for government in the financial services sector – regulating, controlling, policing and so on. In other words, more government after a couple of decades when the trend was for less. Yet, during those same decades, many governments have put a great deal of effort into encouraging the development of ICT skills in general and e-business in particular. Is this really the role of government, or should it be left to business? And even if it was a legitimate activity for government, were the initiatives really necessary or would it all have happened anyway? Have government initiatives in this area really achieved anything, were they an irrelevance, or did they simply get in the way?

Which government in particular are you talking about? Different governments have approached regulation in different ways.

And I'm not so sure I agree that there is a greater role for government in controlling financial services. For example, up until now the FSA have used a principles based approach to regulation and they are now reconsidering this approach for a more traditional rules approach. Is this really 'more' regulation or just 'different' regulation?

I would also disagree that the trend has been for less regulation during the 70s and 80s. Yes there were a lot of privatisations of nationalised businesses but this is not less regulation, it's something else entirely (money grabbing mainly).

I think since the creation of the FSA and the Sarbannes Oxley business there has been more regulatory activity in the UK and US but this isn't a new trend in my opinion.