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This should not be a surprise. The invention of the word-processor did not ''shorten'' legal discourse. The arrival of email did not truncate the nature or volume of our communication. Andy gaveth, but it was not Bill, but our ''innate gift for verbal diarrhoea'' that took away. Note note the interests here: those providing the cure have a direct incentive — in fact, a ''need'' — to ''continue'' helping, because that is how they get paid. They design their disintermediating machines to only disintermediate so far: it must still remain sufficiently dependent on their code, their systems, their expertise, that the users are obliged to pay an annuity for it. To pay ''[[rent]]''. | This should not be a surprise. The invention of the word-processor did not ''shorten'' legal discourse. The arrival of email did not truncate the nature or volume of our communication. Andy gaveth, but it was not Bill, but our ''innate gift for verbal diarrhoea'' that took away. Note note the interests here: those providing the cure have a direct incentive — in fact, a ''need'' — to ''continue'' helping, because that is how they get paid. They design their disintermediating machines to only disintermediate so far: it must still remain sufficiently dependent on their code, their systems, their expertise, that the users are obliged to pay an annuity for it. To pay ''[[rent]]''. | ||
===The fault in our stars=== | ===The fault in our stars=== | ||
Our friends in the [[management consulting]] profession (also [[rent-seeker]]s, needless to say) encourage this disposition through the dogma of [[outsourcing]]. Here the gist is: if you have a convoluted process that is costing you time and money, outsource it, to someone better specialised, incentivised and remunerated to do it, who can do it cheaper, better and — thanks the magic of {{author|Adam Smith}}’s invisible hand — at the optimal cost. In this way do we | Our friends in the [[management consulting]] profession (also [[rent-seeker]]s, needless to say) encourage this disposition through the dogma of [[outsourcing]]. Here the gist is: if you have a convoluted process that is costing you time and money, [[Outsourcing|outsource]] it, to someone better specialised, incentivised and remunerated to do it, who can do it cheaper, better and — thanks the magic of {{author|Adam Smith}}’s invisible hand — at the optimal cost. In this way do we ''entrench'' [[rent-seeker]]s, by building an entire ([[rent-seeking]]) infrastructure around this new [[process]] — with its own [[middle management]], [[operations]], [[compliance]], [[internal audit]], [[procurement]], you name it — that is so costly to remove that it is easier just to live with it, from time to time tweaking the process; optimising it; adjusting it; relocating it., from a service centre in Bangalore to one in Manilla to shave off another half a point in running costs, ''in each case keeping that entire [[Bureaucracy|bureaucratic]] iron lung fully engaged''. And no [[management consultant]] will tell you the obvious truth: had you ''decomplicated'' the process in the first place, perhaps giving away some peripheral protections in the mean time, ''none of this would have been necessary''. | ||
But ask yourself this: it it better to keep that peripheral right to [[cross default]] with all the [[tedious]] arguments it invites — whether default or acceleration, as to level and symmetry of [[Threshold Amount - ISDA Provision|thresholds]], what counts as [[indebtedness]], what sorts of [[grace period]]s should be allowed, whether to include [[derivatives]], [[deposits]], or to carve out operational errors or settlement failures — all of that to cater for a contingency ''that has never arisen in the history of the derivatives market'' — and move it out to Hanoi — or just strike it out of your contractual form altogether? As long as this seems like a competitive advantage; as long as we think our boilerplate is some kind of proprietary technology, we consign ourselves to a permanent arms race ''with our own shadows''. | |||
So where does this leave us? | So where does this leave us? | ||