Comment by PeterStuer
2 months ago
Contrary to what you indicate rules are not declared in a vacuum, for people to read and then algorithmically 'implement'. There are many ways to interpret regulation, and there will be both accompanying clarifications, as well as compliance departments negotiating with regulators on what is an acceptable and sufficient compliance action. Then there furthermore is a risk that will be calculated vs the cost and opportunity costs etc.
As an enterprise architect, these are all part of the meetings you have with compliance when you are working on major projects. I have had the privilege of working with some excellent compliance officers, and they are the opposite of the nay-saying caricature that is often painted of them. I found these people to be extremely creative and helpful, working together towards solutions rather than stalling or nixing viable progress.
I also work in finance and my recent experience with regulators is really discouraging. DOGE wiped out a large amount of the regulators in government. It seems like most of the regulators remaining are the inexperienced and low tenure. Within the past few months we've attempted to roll out new financial products. When we attempt to send our proposal to them, they can't even tell us who we're supposed to send it to.
It doesn't feel like we're living in the same world of regulation that existed prior to DOGE.
So the DOGE geniuses failed to remove the regulations they allegedly thought were hampering legitimate businesses, while removing the people capable of verifying whether or not your business is in compliance.
What a win!
They wiped out anybody that was hampering their businesses. Leaving the rest as an impossible barrier to entry for everybody else is a feature, not a bug.
I found an insanely detailed Wiki page about all of the gov't divisions affected by DOGE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_federal_agencies_targeted_b...
However, I don't see anything about finance there. I'm confused by your comment. Can you provide more specifics?
Not sure why it's not covered in that wiki article, but I'm specifically referencing the FDIC and related agencies. They have been so decimated by DOGE that it is possible that multiple of those related agencies will be consolidated into one (FDIC, NCUA, OCC, etc.).
I can't go into too much detail, but for a financial institution to offer certain financial products, you have to submit a proposal to one of the above regulatory bodies to get their approval. We were attempting to do just that and we couldn't even find the proper person at the given agency who should be receiving said proposal. It was even rumored that regulatory agency who would normally review such proposals didn't have the staff to review them. And the review would be done by an entirely different group of regulators who have not done such things historically.
Additionally, these agencies do regular exams of financial institutions to ensure they are complying with regulations and handling fraud properly. These cuts have led to those exams either not happening, or happening at a fraction of the depth they had been previously.
The point was about who is on the hook and why they might be less permissive.
I'm not implying anything else. I used your own "literal" wording to refer to the "more strict than yours" interpretation.
I suppose I should have used scare quotes around "literal".
'The company' would be on the hook. Inside, it might be the compliance team that signed off on the solution, but it usually is not the sort of blame game at that point. I'm not saying these scapegoat trails do not exist, but they are far less common than you would imagine if you only read about them in the press.
Company politics, feudal wars, fiefdom protections, backstabbing and outright sabotaging, now there's a daily occurrence and many minions are cannon fodder in those skirmishes, but they usually stay clear of regulatory issues minefields.
I am skeptical that developers who implement a non-compliant solution that gets a company in trouble get off scot-free.
If the company you work for actually had such a no-fault culture, I doubt you'd be criticizing programmers so aggressively for being sticklers, but would instead be trying to understand and account for the systemic factors (including human factors) behind their behavior.
6 replies →
> There are many ways to interpret regulation,
Then the rules should enumerate all the ways. From your posts, you come across as if programmers don't know what they are doing which is insulting to those who work in mission critical industries like aviation where a programmer could be criminally charged if he/she didn't implement the specs STRICTLY.
> Then the rules should enumerate all the ways
It's nice to want things, but rules are much squishier in real life. There's rarely any truly bright line.
It isnt programmers fault though.
"you come across as if programmers don't know what they are doing"
Is neither what I said nor believe.