Regulation Nation
"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" - Camus
I was out with the kids at the local park, and ran into a liberal friend who was also there with his kids. We pulled up a park bench and in looking over the playground, my friend wondered why you never see teeter-totters anymore - you know, seesaws. I could only remember back to my own childhood recollections of being raised high into the air, only to have the kid on the bottom jump off the seat, causing me to crash to the ground.
One can assume that over the years, there were lawsuits filed, and the Parks just didn't find the problem worth the hassle of retro-fitting every seesaw with all manner of safety equipment. I replied to my friend that they were probably regulated out of existence. Apparently I had thrown down the gauntlet. In a matter of what seemed like seconds, I was flooded with everything from car seats saving lives to babies getting their heads caught in crib rails.
I pointed out that we had both come up in that primitive era where not only were their no car seats, but mom and dad were chain-smoking in the front seat of the car. We rode our bikes with no helmets and had our share of skinned knees. We got dropped from seesaws, and we made it to adulthood just fine.
It was as if I had just slapped him across the face, and immediately it degraded into the demonizing question - How many children need to die before someone does something? He asked me to settle on a number, as if there is an acceptable amount in my mind. Realizing that there would be no further intelligent discussion on this, I employed the exit strategy. I asked him how many babies needed to die before he would come out against abortion? There we had it. Mutual Assured Conversation Destruction.
We are a nation that has become regulated to the point of stupidity. The FDA requires McDonalds to put out the "nutritional information" on it's food, as if anyone chowing down on a Big Mac thinks that there IS any nutrition in it. McDonalds complies because it's easier and cheaper than fighting it. McDonald's has to go along, because if it does decide to fight they lose on three fronts. First they are demonized by the feds, and their spokeperson on "food correctness" Michelle Obama. Second, the legal costs could add up to a buck onto the price of a Happy Meal. Third, if thet don't go along it opens them up to lawsuits from every Jabba the Hut out there claiming to not know that consuming 5 Quarter Pounder with Cheese combos every day would make them fat. After all, they ordered a Diet Dr. Pepper. That's what happened to Big Tobacco...
We are awash in regulation. There are volumes and volumes of regulations focused on everything from the pressure exerted by the carbonation of a Pepsi on the inside of the can, to the amount of rodent fecal material that is acceptable in a hot dog. Our guess is that exploding cans of Pepsi would be a bad idea and a mess, but we think that Pepsi-Cola company would come to that conclusion as well. As to the rodent fecal material, do we really need a DC bureaucrat issuing decrees from 2000 miles away, or a reputable inspector that is a concerned citizen in the community which he serves.
We are not against all regulation, but we need to ask what is acceptable regulation? That a product or service must actually be or do what it is presented as. If I'm buying a gallon of gasoline, I should be receiving a "gallon" of "gasoline". If I am foolishly purchasing an ounce of gold, it should be gold, and it should weigh one ounce. Misrepresentation is the one true sin of the marketplace. Rooting it out should be the driver in regulatory law.
We really don't need the government to protect us from crappy products. A shoddy product or service goes out of business under the weight of it's shoddiness nearly every time. That has been the case in New Coke, the Chrysler K-car, mortgage-backed derivatives, and countless other things that have become extinct in the marketplace. Still, there is a certain degree of "quality" regulation that we could accept as necessary. After all we wouldn't want a car to fall apart just as it hits 65 mph. Of course a car company making such a vehicle wouldn't last very long.
Once we get to "public safety", there is the real overreach. When the aim of the government is to assist the welfare of the people, a lot of shenanigans go on that are just restrictions on liberty and choice. All of them add costs to the marketplace. We look to point out the unintended consequences of the government being here to help.
There is an agency out here running radio ads about highway fatalities. They claim their job will not be completed until highway fatalities reach zero. That is an impossible goal - even if you eliminate every drunk driver, get every seat belt buckled, jam every cell phone, outlaw Starbucks while driving and require a 100% score on every driver test, some guy will take a heart attack behind the wheel one day and wind up as a traffic fatality, probably taking others with him. Unless they think of outlawing people with heart conditions from driving. In the meantime, in the interest of public safety, the other measures can be justified.
Safety regulations need to be based on common sense benefits, and not seek to eliminate all tragic events. You can't eliminate all tragic events. An example is the spacing between the vertical slats on baby cribs. Those vertical slats were first used to keep baby from falling out of the crib. Observation revealed that babies do have a unique talent for getting their heads stuck between the slats. Over the years the space between those slats has shrunk to the point that baby can hardly get a leg or arm through the slats (2 inches). We can all agree that baby getting his head caught in the slats is a bad idea, and working out a solution that eliminates the problem is a good idea. Focused. Common Sense.
Here's how this plays out in the big picture. Closing that space requires more materials, which increases costs. Cribs used to be manufactured from quality wood. Quality wood is expensive, and using more to make the product comply would increases costs to the consumer. After a while the product becomes unaffordable to the consumer. To accommodate the new costs, but not raise the price to consumers, factories switched to less expensive grades of wood, and to other materials. Eventually we get to the present day where you can still get that beautiful oak crib that meets all regulations on slat width, and it will cost you $1500 - $2000. Or you can go to Babies R Us and get one made in China for about $300.00. Most young couples opt for the $300.00 Chinese crib.
The $300.00 Chinese bed is made of pressboard - essentially paper. The screws rip out of this material without a whole lot of effort (say a toddler jumping in the bed...). Loose screws present a choking hazard. The pressboard itself, when it gets wet enough, falls apart, because it is just stiffened paper. We imagine that there are a good amount of undesirable chemicals in the pressboard itself as China tends to do that. So the big picture here is that to fix one problem, we have created many. While we support the idea of baby not getting his head caught in the slats, this wasn't really well executed. Few things are at the federal level.
It was announced back in July that some 700 new regulations have been proposed or enacted by the Obama administration this year. These new regulations encompass 50,000 pages outlining their scope and methodology. It is not just Big Business that is forced to comply to these directives, but small business as well. All add costs, some to the point of destroying businesses acting in good faith as new regulations are created out of thin air.
A toy importer that I know personally was driven out of business when it was found that certain of his products violated a recent change in the concentration of phthalates (yes that's spelled right - it is a chemical used to soften plastic.). His entire inventory was siezed for "testing", out of which less than 1% of were found to be in violation, by a trace amount in excess of the established guideline (0.10% is acceptable. He came in at 0.12% on a few items.). His business was bankrupted in the process, 40 employees were put out of work, and his "legal" stock was liqudated to pay debts incurred by being shut down for 6 months. Nice.
So, getting back to my friend - seesaws have not been regulated out of existence, but yeah, the ones that you do find in public parks have more safety features than a Volvo. And yes, there are some regulations that are necessary. Very few actually, put in place so that the market can be given time to respond and that accurate information can be disseminated about a product or problem. We don't see that in 50,000 pages of legalese set loose on the country this year. Most of them are just horse trading among lobbyists, and have no practical use in the real world. They just provides fodder for trial lawyers, which is another big drag on the economy. We'll need to save that for another time.
No regulation that aims to stop all bad things from happening is workable, no matter how well intentioned it is. Bad things will happen. The one size fits all regulation that emerges from DC is far less effective at this "goal" than more localized solutions which take into account factors not seen on the federal level. At the State and local level, well-crafted regulation minimizes the likelihood of abuse or error, while not placing undue burdens on people trying to make an honest living.
Ultimately, the responsiblility for regulation belongs with the individual consumer educating himself. No regulation in the world will substitute for using a product or service as intended. No regulation will save anyone from disaster for participating in something that they do not understand. A government regulator is a poor substitute for using our own brains. So says Common Sense.
RLB
I was out with the kids at the local park, and ran into a liberal friend who was also there with his kids. We pulled up a park bench and in looking over the playground, my friend wondered why you never see teeter-totters anymore - you know, seesaws. I could only remember back to my own childhood recollections of being raised high into the air, only to have the kid on the bottom jump off the seat, causing me to crash to the ground.
One can assume that over the years, there were lawsuits filed, and the Parks just didn't find the problem worth the hassle of retro-fitting every seesaw with all manner of safety equipment. I replied to my friend that they were probably regulated out of existence. Apparently I had thrown down the gauntlet. In a matter of what seemed like seconds, I was flooded with everything from car seats saving lives to babies getting their heads caught in crib rails.
I pointed out that we had both come up in that primitive era where not only were their no car seats, but mom and dad were chain-smoking in the front seat of the car. We rode our bikes with no helmets and had our share of skinned knees. We got dropped from seesaws, and we made it to adulthood just fine.
It was as if I had just slapped him across the face, and immediately it degraded into the demonizing question - How many children need to die before someone does something? He asked me to settle on a number, as if there is an acceptable amount in my mind. Realizing that there would be no further intelligent discussion on this, I employed the exit strategy. I asked him how many babies needed to die before he would come out against abortion? There we had it. Mutual Assured Conversation Destruction.
We are a nation that has become regulated to the point of stupidity. The FDA requires McDonalds to put out the "nutritional information" on it's food, as if anyone chowing down on a Big Mac thinks that there IS any nutrition in it. McDonalds complies because it's easier and cheaper than fighting it. McDonald's has to go along, because if it does decide to fight they lose on three fronts. First they are demonized by the feds, and their spokeperson on "food correctness" Michelle Obama. Second, the legal costs could add up to a buck onto the price of a Happy Meal. Third, if thet don't go along it opens them up to lawsuits from every Jabba the Hut out there claiming to not know that consuming 5 Quarter Pounder with Cheese combos every day would make them fat. After all, they ordered a Diet Dr. Pepper. That's what happened to Big Tobacco...
We are awash in regulation. There are volumes and volumes of regulations focused on everything from the pressure exerted by the carbonation of a Pepsi on the inside of the can, to the amount of rodent fecal material that is acceptable in a hot dog. Our guess is that exploding cans of Pepsi would be a bad idea and a mess, but we think that Pepsi-Cola company would come to that conclusion as well. As to the rodent fecal material, do we really need a DC bureaucrat issuing decrees from 2000 miles away, or a reputable inspector that is a concerned citizen in the community which he serves.
We are not against all regulation, but we need to ask what is acceptable regulation? That a product or service must actually be or do what it is presented as. If I'm buying a gallon of gasoline, I should be receiving a "gallon" of "gasoline". If I am foolishly purchasing an ounce of gold, it should be gold, and it should weigh one ounce. Misrepresentation is the one true sin of the marketplace. Rooting it out should be the driver in regulatory law.
We really don't need the government to protect us from crappy products. A shoddy product or service goes out of business under the weight of it's shoddiness nearly every time. That has been the case in New Coke, the Chrysler K-car, mortgage-backed derivatives, and countless other things that have become extinct in the marketplace. Still, there is a certain degree of "quality" regulation that we could accept as necessary. After all we wouldn't want a car to fall apart just as it hits 65 mph. Of course a car company making such a vehicle wouldn't last very long.
Once we get to "public safety", there is the real overreach. When the aim of the government is to assist the welfare of the people, a lot of shenanigans go on that are just restrictions on liberty and choice. All of them add costs to the marketplace. We look to point out the unintended consequences of the government being here to help.
There is an agency out here running radio ads about highway fatalities. They claim their job will not be completed until highway fatalities reach zero. That is an impossible goal - even if you eliminate every drunk driver, get every seat belt buckled, jam every cell phone, outlaw Starbucks while driving and require a 100% score on every driver test, some guy will take a heart attack behind the wheel one day and wind up as a traffic fatality, probably taking others with him. Unless they think of outlawing people with heart conditions from driving. In the meantime, in the interest of public safety, the other measures can be justified.
Safety regulations need to be based on common sense benefits, and not seek to eliminate all tragic events. You can't eliminate all tragic events. An example is the spacing between the vertical slats on baby cribs. Those vertical slats were first used to keep baby from falling out of the crib. Observation revealed that babies do have a unique talent for getting their heads stuck between the slats. Over the years the space between those slats has shrunk to the point that baby can hardly get a leg or arm through the slats (2 inches). We can all agree that baby getting his head caught in the slats is a bad idea, and working out a solution that eliminates the problem is a good idea. Focused. Common Sense.
Here's how this plays out in the big picture. Closing that space requires more materials, which increases costs. Cribs used to be manufactured from quality wood. Quality wood is expensive, and using more to make the product comply would increases costs to the consumer. After a while the product becomes unaffordable to the consumer. To accommodate the new costs, but not raise the price to consumers, factories switched to less expensive grades of wood, and to other materials. Eventually we get to the present day where you can still get that beautiful oak crib that meets all regulations on slat width, and it will cost you $1500 - $2000. Or you can go to Babies R Us and get one made in China for about $300.00. Most young couples opt for the $300.00 Chinese crib.
The $300.00 Chinese bed is made of pressboard - essentially paper. The screws rip out of this material without a whole lot of effort (say a toddler jumping in the bed...). Loose screws present a choking hazard. The pressboard itself, when it gets wet enough, falls apart, because it is just stiffened paper. We imagine that there are a good amount of undesirable chemicals in the pressboard itself as China tends to do that. So the big picture here is that to fix one problem, we have created many. While we support the idea of baby not getting his head caught in the slats, this wasn't really well executed. Few things are at the federal level.
It was announced back in July that some 700 new regulations have been proposed or enacted by the Obama administration this year. These new regulations encompass 50,000 pages outlining their scope and methodology. It is not just Big Business that is forced to comply to these directives, but small business as well. All add costs, some to the point of destroying businesses acting in good faith as new regulations are created out of thin air.
A toy importer that I know personally was driven out of business when it was found that certain of his products violated a recent change in the concentration of phthalates (yes that's spelled right - it is a chemical used to soften plastic.). His entire inventory was siezed for "testing", out of which less than 1% of were found to be in violation, by a trace amount in excess of the established guideline (0.10% is acceptable. He came in at 0.12% on a few items.). His business was bankrupted in the process, 40 employees were put out of work, and his "legal" stock was liqudated to pay debts incurred by being shut down for 6 months. Nice.
So, getting back to my friend - seesaws have not been regulated out of existence, but yeah, the ones that you do find in public parks have more safety features than a Volvo. And yes, there are some regulations that are necessary. Very few actually, put in place so that the market can be given time to respond and that accurate information can be disseminated about a product or problem. We don't see that in 50,000 pages of legalese set loose on the country this year. Most of them are just horse trading among lobbyists, and have no practical use in the real world. They just provides fodder for trial lawyers, which is another big drag on the economy. We'll need to save that for another time.
No regulation that aims to stop all bad things from happening is workable, no matter how well intentioned it is. Bad things will happen. The one size fits all regulation that emerges from DC is far less effective at this "goal" than more localized solutions which take into account factors not seen on the federal level. At the State and local level, well-crafted regulation minimizes the likelihood of abuse or error, while not placing undue burdens on people trying to make an honest living.
Ultimately, the responsiblility for regulation belongs with the individual consumer educating himself. No regulation in the world will substitute for using a product or service as intended. No regulation will save anyone from disaster for participating in something that they do not understand. A government regulator is a poor substitute for using our own brains. So says Common Sense.
RLB
Posted by The Thomas Paine Project at 9/6/2011 7:47 PM 
Categories: The Economy, states rights, Partisan Politics
Tags: economy government gridlock regulation small business
Categories: The Economy, states rights, Partisan Politics
Tags: economy government gridlock regulation small business
SHRINK THE GOVERNMENT! I never saw the movie, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," but I wish we could have a documentary sequel titled, "Patriots, I Shrunk the Government." Every govt agency is waaaaaay oversized. And then we need to send all legislators home for 6 months of the year and let them convene in D.C. only 6 months of the year.
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Personally I find all this regulation ridiculous. If you need to be told don’t use a hair dryer in the shower or bath tub I don’t think we need your gene’s in the gene pool. Just saying.
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You're speaking to my life. I've actually had to contract a company to make sure that I'm in compliance with all of this BS. I guess that qualifies as a job created or saved - just not the 3 or 4 extra hires that I could really use right now. Obama is making this as hard as humanly possible.
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Taxes and regulations need to change, but also need to address our energy costs. If we don't lower these costs, by investing in drilling, nuclear power, etc. Companies won't come back.
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You're getting no arguments from me on this one. I can't keep up wit the flood of new regs coming out. Even my regulatory advisers are coming up short. Half the time I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping I'm still in compliance. It's not a great strategy, but really, we can't keep up.
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It's not just the costs - it's the inconvenience. One fine example - tamper-proof packaging. It's the FDA version of the TSA. If someone really wants to poison your food or pills, they will find a way. The rest of us hve to fumble withplastic trays that don't tear and foil that won't break no matter how hard you push on your Claritin pill. It's nuts.
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There are regulations everywhere - the TSA is one big mess of regulation. The gallon of gasoline is actually 15% ethanol - because of regulations. Thenew bank fees - all from regulations. I agree that there need to be some regulations, but this is overdoing it by anyone's standards.
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Hey don't forget Obamacare - those regulations alone are killing us. And everything is "at the discretion of the Secretary of HHS" - which gives full authority to do anything to one unelected bureaucrat. Whatever happened to America? You know - "land of the free"?
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I would have to add common sense AND self correcting behavior through product liability could do more than Federal regs. As much as I've moved over the years, I have seen the effects of local gov't failing to recognize a threat long after other states or towns have resolved it, so I do see both sides of this.
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