Why should we be happy with downsizing governement?

[Callie Del Noire]

I've been watching the news a bit again, and I notice that the politicians talking about 'downsizing' government are leaving out WHAT they are downsizing or the effects it will have on the layman.

-Downsizing the Department of Energy.
  Less oversight of energy producers, watching out for things like oil spills, fracking contamination of our water supply.
-Downsizing the Department of Labor
  Less worker safety protection. Less investigation into labor abuses such as illegal labor (they do this along with ICE), pay violations and such.
-Department of Trade
  These are the guys responsible for checking into business fraud, and have been put in charge of investigation of privacy invasion practices by online providers. In a decade their duties have doubled while their budget is constantly decreased.

Other fun things that 'cutting useless regulation and oversight' has given us. The repeal of the Glass/Steagall act in 95 (by my two favorite congressmen: Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi. With the repeal of this, a LARGE portion of the adventurist and opportunistic actions that led up to the mortgage crisis came out of the elimination of barriers between the commercial and investment banks.

I hear the words 'Industry should regulate itself' and blink. We tried that back in the 19th century and it didn't work anygood except for the big money bags like Rockafeller and his type. Why do you think a century and change later it will be any different?

I say we 'rightsize' government. You want to get rid of bloat, reform the defense contract business, stop agreeing to letting big pharma get away with drug deals that leave our people suffering. Perhaps look into doing something with the war on drugs, such as legalizing/controlling pot. Stop supplementing corporate farming that does nothing but stuffs corn and soy down our throats and reform a lot of support structure to encourage domestic investment and growth.

Oh right..that's not immediately profitable in six quarters or less.

Small Government was good when we were less than a million citizens and were still working around the steam engine. Today we need regulators to keep us safe and the market fair.

Just look at the energy issues that California started in the mid to late 90s with deregulating energy. The companies sold their energy to out of state interests for more profit and mayhem ensued.

[Caela]

I think you can "downsize" a lot of those departments without slashing them to the point of ineffectiveness. You don't have to eliminate them entirely but I would certainly like to see a lot of the "bloat" and redundancies cut out of the system. I'd like something effective and efficient, not something where a field agent does an analysis and it has to go through 20 middlemen before it gets to anyone who can do anything with his/her results 5 years later.

Yes I know that's an exaggeration but it was done to make a point lol.

I'd also like to see a stop put to some of the cronyism going on in these regulatory agencies. There is NO excuse for ex-executives from Monsanto, or BP, or any other major corporation to be sitting on the boards of the very agencies that are supposed to be regulating those industries. Can we say massive conflicts of interest!

[Callie Del Noire]

I think you can "downsize" a lot of those departments without slashing them to the point of ineffectiveness. You don't have to eliminate them entirely but I would certainly like to see a lot of the "bloat" and redundancies cut out of the system. I'd like something effective and efficient, not something where a field agent does an analysis and it has to go through 20 middlemen before it gets to anyone who can do anything with his/her results 5 years later.

Yes I know that's an exaggeration but it was done to make a point lol.

I'd also like to see a stop put to some of the cronyism going on in these regulatory agencies. There is NO excuse for ex-executives from Monsanto, or BP, or any other major corporation to be sitting on the boards of the very agencies that are supposed to be regulating those industries. Can we say massive conflicts of interest!

Dont' get me started about the intelliegence community. I've walked the periphery of the community for a long time.. and my dad longer. One of the few things we've both agreed is a diminishment of physical intelligence and a reliance on analysts, and more and more analysts.

[Caela]

Dont' get me started about the intelliegence community. I've walked the periphery of the community for a long time.. and my dad longer. One of the few things we've both agreed is a diminishment of physical intelligence and a reliance on analysts, and more and more analysts.

lol I won't get you started because I'll admit I don't know enough about the intelligence community to discuss it intelligently myself. All I can say about it is that, from the little I've seen in the news and read about it etc. it seems that the various agencies don't communicate well.

[Callie Del Noire]

lol I won't get you started because I'll admit I don't know enough about the intelligence community to discuss it intelligently myself. All I can say about it is that, from the little I've seen in the news and read about it etc. it seems that the various agencies don't communicate well.

SUPPOSEDLY the Department of Homeland Security is there in part to coordinate and consolidate the various intel agencies and make sure they play nice.

ELINT is majorly the purview of the NSA, Domestic is the balliwack of the FBI (With the DEA, ATF, Border Patrol/ICE, Secret Service and a few others adding to the mix), Foreign is supposed to be the CIa (with some of the above domenstic groups having points in it).

There is a truly HIDEOUS amount of data going through the community and at a certain level there is a 'deliver what the boss wants to hear' still in place despite the outcome of 9/11.

Ironically despite the amount of data, there has been dry spell of actually john on the spot physical intel. Because it's expensive, time comsuming, expensive, and oh yeah.. expensive. As well as the last ten years the US intel community has leaked like a sieve. You got the outing of Valerie Plame.. which the white house blasely white washed.. (Carl Rove's little punishment of Plame's husband put people in the ground..) and Wikileaks. No one who is a really intelligent person in that area of the world is going to easily trust the US to keep them safe for a long long time.

[Revolverman]

The thing with downsizing is that it almost ALWAYS end up cutting people who do the footwork (and cost/make the least) but it ALWAYS keeps the bloated, over-payed middle/upper management. At least here in BC and in Health care, something about 40% of the budget is Admin and Management costs.

So, Downsizing always ends up cutting meat and sometimes even the bone of the program, but the fat always stays, "justifying" more cuts. Funny how that works.

[Caela]

The thing with downsizing is that it almost ALWAYS end up cutting people who do the footwork (and cost/make the least) but it ALWAYS keeps the bloated, over-payed middle/upper management. At least here in BC and in Health care, something about 40% of the budget is Admin and Management costs.

So, Downsizing always ends up cutting meat and sometimes even the bone of the program, but the fat always stays, "justifying" more cuts. Funny how that works.

I would LOVE to see the "fat" cut! At my last job we had ten, ten managers! When they upped the number I asked on of the new ones what exactly she was going to be doing and she laughed and said, "I don't know really." Don't cut the people that DO the work, cut the number of people they need to go through to get the damned job done.

[Callie Del Noire]

The thing with downsizing is that it almost ALWAYS end up cutting people who do the footwork (and cost/make the least) but it ALWAYS keeps the bloated, over-payed middle/upper management. At least here in BC and in Health care, something about 40% of the budget is Admin and Management costs.

So, Downsizing always ends up cutting meat and sometimes even the bone of the program, but the fat always stays, "justifying" more cuts. Funny how that works.

When I joined the Navy back in 95, we had just finished bleeding the lower ranks white (Enlisted Ranks E1-E6 and Officers from LTJGs to Lt. Commanders) but the 'career managers' (E-7+, the cheifs) stayed where they were. I have had more than a few R.O.A.D Chiefs (Retired On Active Duty) Chiefs. The higher officers had the 'lists' and more than a few Lt. Commanders were blacklisted for being at the Tailhook events (had one find out SEVEN years afterwards when he went up.. he went to the press with his flightlogs and receipts (he flew in the first day and left that afternoon.))

This last turn of purges put a cap on time in rank for the chiefs.. no more making chief in twelve and staying there for 9 years. They have to show drive and intiative..and fight for those ever so scarce higher chief ranks and officer programs. I talked to one of my friends to hear how it was..

It's gotten pretty bloody.. It went from my first command back in '95 having 3 Chief Petty Officers to each spot that we actually needed them to nearly 1 to 1 now. Add in the downsizing, gutting of things like Surface Control Commands (a stupid move in my opinion), consolidating commands into a massive hybrid and putting us in fewer and fewer bases.. we're looking at a strategic vulnerbility that we need to reconsider.

A well placed black market nuke at the right time and place could erase anywhere from 50% to all of our fleet capacity in a theater and in some specialized communities.. ALL of it. Boom.. no assets, crews, knowledge. With one nasty bomb, you roll us back to the 1950s in some areas.

[AndyZ]

Would it be possible, rather than trusting the bloated and corrupt management to handle the cuts, to simply scrap everything and have someone rebuild the programs at a fraction of the cost and without all the fat?

I figure you could hire a consultant who actually knows how to run a business and is used to all her suggestions being ignored and not being able to say that it's the managers who really need to go, or something like that.

That's also assuming you even need half the programs in existence, but that's a whole different story.

Callie, if you think the nuke situation is bad, you should look into EMP attacks.

[Callie Del Noire]

Would it be possible, rather than trusting the bloated and corrupt management to handle the cuts, to simply scrap everything and have someone rebuild the programs at a fraction of the cost and without all the fat?

I figure you could hire a consultant who actually knows how to run a business and is used to all her suggestions being ignored and not being able to say that it's the managers who really need to go, or something like that.

That's also assuming you even need half the programs in existence, but that's a whole different story.

Callie, if you think the nuke situation is bad, you should look into EMP attacks.

I know about EMP.. but unless you're REALLY close with an EMP Pulse.. it doesn't kill the knowledge base.. just the tech and online data.. the point I am making is at least TWO of the communities I worked in are now located in a single base location. And they are VITAL for national security. Gear/Tech/Data can be replaced.. but the people who do the work are not so easily replaced.

As for scrapping everything and starting over. It's wasteful. It is time consuming.  You kill an whole Agemcy and rebuild in an effort to save dollars.? Sorry that isn't smart. You do throw the baby out with the bath water. You fix the problems, shake up the admin tree and reprioritze and speak frankly of what you need to do.

[RubySlippers]

Lets get real here who the hell would dare move on us to invade us the only real threat to any nation, they try we go nuclear and noone wins classic MADD as a defense. That is why you have nuclear weapons to keep the nation from being threatened that way. That leaves fringe minor threats like terrorism and even if they used a nuke in a city it would not destroy the nation unless we let it. I think we could gut the military of half its numbers and divert part of that to intelligence services that can stop such terrorist threats we need a fine knife used in those cases not a sledgehammer.

As for the topic we are a big and powerful nation and so need a big governmentto oversee it.

[Callie Del Noire]

Lets get real here who the hell would dare move on us to invade us the only real threat to any nation, they try we go nuclear and noone wins classic MADD as a defense. That is why you have nuclear weapons to keep the nation from being threatened that way. That leaves fringe minor threats like terrorism and even if they used a nuke in a city it would not destroy the nation unless we let it. I think we could gut the military of half its numbers and divert part of that to intelligence services that can stop such terrorist threats we need a fine knife used in those cases not a sledgehammer.

As for the topic we are a big and powerful nation and so need a big government to oversee it.

You assume that it will be someone rational.. or that we will be able to figure out who did it. The detonation of a multi-megaton warhead leaves very little clues and it would be fairly easy to blame it on the wrong person. And how do you bomb the minister of a multinational terrorist organization? We're not always dealing with nationstates. And nukes aren't the only lethal tool to deny us assets in the field. Think about how much damage you could do to the fleet infrastructure with a handful of well placed wide area dispersal 'dirty bombs'. You poison the people in the area, contaminate the material.

There is a difference  between 'big government' and 'government as a regulatory agency'. One is what the GOP wants to use socially, legislating us in areas like abortion and treatment, the other is keeping the marketplace 'fair and balanced.'. Strangely enough it's okay for the GOP to pass laws like invasive ultrasounds and such for abortions but not okay to put in anything that keeps the big banks/corps from not crushing the little guys.

[Caela]

Lets get real here who the hell would dare move on us to invade us the only real threat to any nation, they try we go nuclear and noone wins classic MADD as a defense. That is why you have nuclear weapons to keep the nation from being threatened that way. That leaves fringe minor threats like terrorism and even if they used a nuke in a city it would not destroy the nation unless we let it. I think we could gut the military of half its numbers and divert part of that to intelligence services that can stop such terrorist threats we need a fine knife used in those cases not a sledgehammer.

As for the topic we are a big and powerful nation and so need a big governmentto oversee it.

In the case of an outright invasion, you're probably right. Attacking us would be a logistics nightmare! However, in this day and age, there are ways of attacking without using traditional weapons of war.

Hell, if they decided it was more important to cripple us, and were willing to take the economic hit in the short term, the mid-east and China could crush us using economics. Stop sending all the goods we no longer make for ourselves and stop shipping in the oil and we would be royally screwed in very short order. Or they could call in all the debts we owe and fully bankrupt us making our current recession look like a walk in the park. Granted this could all have a lot of unforeseen consequences to them as well but it could be done if they were willing.

As for being a big country, and this needing a big gov't, I call bullshit. What we need is an effective and efficient government and efficiency rarely = bigger. Most of our agencies are bloated with ineffective middle and upper management all doing a lot of the same things. You could streamline these agencies and make them much more effective and less costly. Let's also not forget that a number of our regulatory agencies are just as subject to being "bought" as our politicians are. Agencies like the FDA have no business hiring ex-employees from companies line Monsanto and Pfizer any more than the ATF should be hiring folks from Smith&Wesson. It is a massive conflict of interest that only serves the industries these agencies are supposed to be regulating.

[Callie Del Noire]

In the case of an outright invasion, you're probably right. Attacking us would be a logistics nightmare! However, in this day and age, there are ways of attacking without using traditional weapons of war.

Hell, if they decided it was more important to cripple us, and were willing to take the economic hit in the short term, the mid-east and China could crush us using economics. Stop sending all the goods we no longer make for ourselves and stop shipping in the oil and we would be royally screwed in very short order. Or they could call in all the debts we owe and fully bankrupt us making our current recession look like a walk in the park. Granted this could all have a lot of unforeseen consequences to them as well but it could be done if they were willing.

As for being a big country, and this needing a big gov't, I call bullshit. What we need is an effective and efficient government and efficiency rarely = bigger. Most of our agencies are bloated with ineffective middle and upper management all doing a lot of the same things. You could streamline these agencies and make them much more effective and less costly. Let's also not forget that a number of our regulatory agencies are just as subject to being "bought" as our politicians are. Agencies like the FDA have no business hiring ex-employees from companies line Monsanto and Pfizer any more than the ATF should be hiring folks from Smith&Wesson. It is a massive conflict of interest that only serves the industries these agencies are supposed to be regulating.

That is so true.. (emphasis mine). We need to thin out leadership in the agencies, BUT we also need to break the outlook of the last few presidents that if it's not directly tied to congress it's part of the executive branch. There is a serious set of imbalance of power in the federal government. Downsizing regulatory agencies isn't the fix we need. Streamline them yes.. cut some of the middle management, take a long hard frank look at the current policies in place and fix them.

There is a very incestuous relationship between businesses and their regulators..that needs to be fixed. Some agencies need MORE agents in the fields. Look at the number of large scale food issues in the last few years and tell me the Food and Drug Administration doesn't need some fixing?

[Serephino]

It was on the news last week that officials are concerned about the power grid.  Remember that storm a few weeks back that wiped out power to a good chuck of the Mid Atlantic?  Remember how long it took to get it turned back on? 

That was just a storm.  If a terrorist organization attacks the power grid, we are apparently fucked.  We rely too much on computers.  Everything needs electricity.  We use radar to see what's coming from where.  That uses electricity.  Landline phones don't need electricity, but who uses those anymore...  Communications and defenses are now all dependent upon digital technology because it's cheaper, faster, and more efficient.  It's also very vulnerable.  I've known this since I was a child, but what do I know?  When the local news ran the story my reaction was... no shit morons...

[Caela]

It was on the news last week that officials are concerned about the power grid.  Remember that storm a few weeks back that wiped out power to a good chuck of the Mid Atlantic?  Remember how long it took to get it turned back on? 

That was just a storm.  If a terrorist organization attacks the power grid, we are apparently fucked.  We rely too much on computers.  Everything needs electricity.  We use radar to see what's coming from where.  That uses electricity.  Landline phones don't need electricity, but who uses those anymore...  Communications and defenses are now all dependent upon digital technology because it's cheaper, faster, and more efficient.  It's also very vulnerable.  I've known this since I was a child, but what do I know?  When the local news ran the story my reaction was... no shit morons...

Hell forget a terrorist attack, at the rate our population is growing, and additions (like new power plants) to the grid aren't, it'll only be a generation, maybe two, before we overload it ourselves. Hell even now you've got cities that, almost, every summer have rolling blackouts because they can't handle the drain on the grid when all the AC's kick on.

This is a problem, mostly, with industry and the EPA butting heads. Plenty of places try to get the permits to build new plants, hell they need the energy and the jobs but are, often, blocked by the EPA. I am all for protecting our environment and making sure that industries use the cleanest technologies available to them, but I am not in favor of being so protective of a damned mouse that I'm willing to let people die (and when you have rolling blackouts in places like LA, in august, people DO die, mostly older folks, of things like heat stroke) instead. Not saying the EPA should be put on the chopping block, they serve a vital purpose, but I do think they need to be less stringent at times and look at the long term effects on people as well as the environment.

[Oniya]

It was on the news last week that officials are concerned about the power grid.  Remember that storm a few weeks back that wiped out power to a good chuck of the Mid Atlantic?  Remember how long it took to get it turned back on? 

That was just a storm.  If a terrorist organization attacks the power grid, we are apparently fucked.  We rely too much on computers.  Everything needs electricity.  We use radar to see what's coming from where.  That uses electricity.  Landline phones don't need electricity, but who uses those anymore...  Communications and defenses are now all dependent upon digital technology because it's cheaper, faster, and more efficient.  It's also very vulnerable.  I've known this since I was a child, but what do I know?  When the local news ran the story my reaction was... no shit morons...

Actually, landline phones do use electricity - just not very much, and they're on a separate, dedicated power supply.  http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question62.htm  Something that can take out the power grid could possibly affect the backup generators that power the landline grid as well.

[MasterMischief]

Is it any wonder the corporations want the restraints off?  Sure, they talk about the inefficiencies, but what they really want to do away with is regulations so they can return to the robber Barron days.  Anyone who wants to protect the people gets labeled a socialist.

[Callie Del Noire]

Is it any wonder the corporations want the restraints off?  Sure, they talk about the inefficiencies, but what they really want to do away with is regulations so they can return to the robber Barron days.  Anyone who wants to protect the people gets labeled a socialist.

You already got some of that. Like I've pointed out before, an expose of the beef industry like the Jungle by Upton Sinclair would get him sued these days. Truthfulness or not.

[Darius]

I have to say, power generation is not the entire problem. What we really lack is a power infrastructure than can handle the new needs. Everyone is a NIMBY (not in my back yard) when it comes to constructing new power distribution lines. The power grid in the desert southwest gets pushed to about 110% of capacity every summer. You can do that, just not for long durations, it causes excessive heat in the wires and they droop more causing other problems.

To the original point of the OP. Why should you be happy with downsized government? I'm not going to quote everyone, but someone suggested scrapping it and starting all over with someone from business putting it together. I believe that's a horrible idea. The government should never be run like a business. A business is out to make a profit, the purpose of a government is to provide services, protect infrastructure, and protect its citizens from all threats both external and internal. The last 'business' types who led government repealed protections and as a result, the air is dirtier, the water is less safe to drink, and they let the worst attack on this country slip through when they had advanced warning of it, and they wrecked the economy (that was really 30 years of bad decisions but let's not dwell on that). All in all, not a great track record on any front.

[Callie Del Noire]

There are a lot of stupid actions that were 'business wise' but consumer stupid.

For example you had the electricity crisis in California, set up by deregulation (around 2000/2001) and look who benefitted. Folks like Enron.
-The mortgage crisis was cause in part by removing the legistlative 'firewall' that kept investment and commercial banks apart, BOTH the people who sponsored the repeal of Glass-Stegall (Nancy Pelosi-D and Newt Gingrich-R) in the House admited that it was a MASSIVE mistake.
-Derregulation of the Airline industry led to the disruption of airlines in the US. EVERYONE of the big 5 US domestic lines were finacial looted, bankrupted, hacked up and devaluation as well as PanAm. At least a few of these airlines only exist in that someone bought their name and used it after the company went bankrupt. Read up on the atrocities committed by men like Frank Lorenzo.
-Look at the internet provider and cell service companies. We are seeing less and less money being put into infrastructure and support, and more and more excuses to pull every penny out of the services they DO provide. Cell providers cut back on upkeep by hiring contractors, who subcontract at rates so low that proper safety measures can't be followed. Looking into the cell service provider system tech's mishaps rates, they are among the highest in industry. Period. It's safer to be a high rise window maintainer, working the flight deck on an aircraft carrier and handling explosives. OSHA should be acting, but gee.. when you have a bunch of nutjob tea party downsizers.

Less regulation is okay.. as long as the aim is 'right sizing' and not elimiination for the benefit of business. Consider some of the incidents we've had in the last few years. Tainted foods of all sort.. because in the last 2 decades the number of safety inspection by the FDA has dropped by a third or more.

There is a LOT of reasons.

[Serephino]

Anyone who has Comcast knows they can't regulate themselves.  They just raised their prices a few months ago for no other reason than they felt like it.  This past week my net has randomly dropped for several minutes at a time.  You'd think with all that extra money they'd be able to keep their service running....

[Callie Del Noire]

Anyone who has Comcast knows they can't regulate themselves.  They just raised their prices a few months ago for no other reason than they felt like it.  This past week my net has randomly dropped for several minutes at a time.  You'd think with all that extra money they'd be able to keep their service running....

Exactly.. I read an article somewhere that the ISPs and Cell providers were using less and less of their profits for upkeep and innovation but using the 'need to stay current' as an excuse for rate increases. Time and time again folks try to push for regulation but the folks in congress don't want to touch it.

Looking over state level 'regulation' and you'll see even more atrocities. For example you got the "Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Bill (H129)" which actually tilts the playing field against small municipalities starting up their own broadband service because it might make them competition in some future date.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/op-ed-north-carolina-broadband-bill-would-eliminate-level-playing-field/

They (the ISPs) provided figures 'proving' that something like 95% of the state was covered by broadband.. by tilting the figures in such a way that the FCC would never accept. You are considered 'covered' if ANYONE in your zip code has what they define as 'high speed internet' (like 1/4 the speed of what the FCC defines as high speed broadband). So, joe q public on the other side of the county has something like an old high speed phone line.. you're 'covered' by the ISPs definition. And thus you don't need a municipal broadband service or county coop getting into the game. (since they won't price fix as much or stick to lower rates like the ISP).

And when it passed..what did the Governor do? She let it pass into law by not signing it or vetoing it (couldn't find a poll that didn't make fighting the State House worth it.. )

[Serephino]

Comcast is my only choice at the moment, which pisses me off to no end.  You'd think that would violate ant-trust laws, but somehow it doesn't.  Verizon offers DSL  in the area, and so does Atlantic Broadband.  Thing is, they don't offer it in my town.  Verizon said they'd have to if I got something like 100 signatures from my neighbors saying they wanted the service.  Basically, they'd want to make it worth their while, and one new customer isn't worth it.  Atlantic Broadband did the same thing.  So I guess as long as there's competition in the general area it's all good. 

[BCdan]

Not necessarily the examples you cited, but I think the government does a lot of stupid stuff for dishonest reasons.  I think welfare could be vastly more streamlined, corporate income taxes are extremely regressive, the government shouldn't be subsidizing single home mortgages, the drug war should have never been fought and a lot of regulations exist to keep out competition instead of protecting citizens. 

I think you can be unhappy with broadly across the board downsizing government, but when we get into specifics, I don't think you will find a single American who can't find a single thing to cut save for absolute authoritarians.

[AndyZ]

Serephino, my sincerest sympathies at being stuck with Comcast.  I had that for a year and it was terrible.

I can understand why Verizon would want 100 signatures, though.  They have to set up all the stuff in your area, so if they did it for just a few people, it'd cost them more money than they'd get from your business.

If you can't get the sigs, have you looked into satellite?

[Serephino]

I'm not sure if satellite is offered here for internet, and they aren't that reliable for TV.  People I know told me they like to stick it to you with underhanded shit too, like saying they'll do free installation, but charging an equipment fee of $90 for a little metal poll.  A mother of a guy I dated said she was forewarned of that, and bought one herself at Lowe's for like $5 and made them use that.  The guy tried to argue with her, saying their special poll was needed, but she held them up side by side and proved their was no difference.

Back on topic though, yes, I'm sure there are things that could be cut.  Thing is, the GOP doesn't want to go through and cut specific stuff, especially the stuff that makes them all fat and happy.  Nope, they want to just gut the hell out of social programs because the poor are just a nuisance anyway, and get rid of regulations that hinder the profits of their major donors. 

I'm all for cutting actual fat, and getting rid of stuff that genuinely isn't needed/doesn't do much good.     

[AndyZ]

Oh yeah, any time you let one company have a monopoly in a situation, they're going to take advantage.  That's why it's important to have competition so that they'll weed out their own problems.  You probably already know about how capitalism is supposed to work, though.  (If you don't, let me know and I'll help explain.)

Parties never want to cut their own stuff, though, Democrat or Republican.  They both get special little favors for having the things in.  I can't tell just from text if you honestly believe that this is a GOP-only issue or if you know that Democrats do it too and just want to focus more on the GOP side.

However, I actually believe that the only way parties will get fixed is by their own members.  Republicans don't really care what Democrats think because they know they won't get their votes, and vice versa.  I'm not in the Tea Party but I love how they're trying to get rid of the establishment career politicians of their own party and have actually had some success there; I'm curious whether Occupy will do the same.

I may be getting partly off topic here, though I think it's all fairly relevant.  Callie, let me know if this kind of thing is alright.

[Callie Del Noire]

Well mostly it's a GOP thing, the downsizing government, but not exclusively. Look CAREFULLY at what the candidates say when they are running for office. Like Herman Cain, to use one of the more extreme tea party candidates.

He wanted to shut down outright departments of labor, education and energy. That would really mess up things. A lot.

Democrats tend to favor the use of regulatory agencies for 'balancing the marketplace' and 'protecting the consumer'. Tell me how removing regulatory authoritity on the fuel industry, killing OSHA, crippling the EPA and taking away oversight on worker safety in the workplace and destroying the Food/Drugs Administrations ability to safeguard the food production industry is in our best industry?

I'm more Reagan conservative, 'right sized' over downsizing everything. Ronnie was all for downsizing government, but also maintained some regulation was a good thing.

Look at the way our banks have been this last five years.. do you HONESTLY think they will go 'Oh yeah..this is illegal/unethical/anticompetion.. so we aren't going to do it.'?

Yes, it would be ideally suitable and cost effective for industry to selfregulate.. but let's be honest.. it's counter-intuitive. Industry isn't going to do anything that curtails their profits till they are forced to. And look at what the big ISP/Cable companies are doing to the internet in the US. We were the FIRST part of the internet, yet we lag behind in all facets now because it's more profitable to squeeze every dime out of the customer rather than upgrade and update the hardware.

If we let the ISPs provide the service they want.. they'd charge us by the byte.. you'd pay MORE to use services that comcast/att/whoever didn't like.. and lose even more bandwidth for using things that they aren't paid for by producer and user.

'Self-regulation' has been a byword in the GOP for a while..and any idiot with two brain cells knows it's not in our collective best interest to allow it.

And no Andyz.. you wern't too far off the topic in your comments.. its sorta of a tangent.. but it too far off and you came back.

[AndyZ]

Good enough.  Just nudge me if I do get too far, but I think I'm tangential enough to continue to make points.

From my understanding, this is how capitalism is supposed to work:

Ordinarily, there will be a number of different products which compete for customers.  When there's only one company, that creates a monopoly, which is bad.  The monopoly can effectively do whatever they want, like Serephino's case of raising their rates just because.

In order to counteract this, there has to be a low barrier of entry, so that new companies can start up whenever they want.  Your average Jane can just look at $2,000 gold necklaces and say, "What the crap?  I can have them made for $1,500," and start up a business to do so.  That way, companies who gouge their customers have to be careful about going too crazy, and competition keeps things under control.

Now, that low barrier to entry is where the trouble starts.  We have so many regulations that small businesses can't learn them all, but big businesses have the lawyers that let them weasel through things.  The last time I had this conversation, it got compared to an RPG with several dozen books.  Have you ever had that one friend who knew the entire system inside out and could run roughshod over any GM?

Roleplaying games handle this by coming out with new editions.  They streamline everything and make it easier for new players to pop in.  Government doesn't ever do this; if anything, they just keep compounding stuff and make it even harder.  I think John Stossel said it was 80,000 pages of regulations last year, and I don't know if that's hyperbole or not, but even if it's only 8,000 every year, how is any small business owner supposed to be able to keep up?

(If that number is wrong, let me know how much it really is.)

Now, an alternative to the capitalism method would be having the government set the price, but that really doesn't work.  Prices have to stay fluid, going up or down based on supply and demand, and government has shown time and again that they aren't able to keep up with such things.

I also wouldn't be interested in seeing a government-run ISP.  Look at the horrendous job they do with the public school systems, the roads and so on.  The free market isn't perfect, but when you leave it alone, it handles a lot of these problems on its own.

Now, that doesn't mean that you don't need government at all, it means that government has gotten too bloated, and while big businesses can play the system, small businesses are trapped by the rules which are meant to contain the big businesses.

If you're a Reagan conservative, you may want to look into Art Laffer and some of what he's said about it all.

[Callie Del Noire]

Okay.. first off.. those HUGE numbers of pages.. not all of them apply to every form of business. A lot of them are tied into finances.. stuff the BANKS wants before they give you the money you need to purchase the means of production.

What does a guy selling books need to know about the OSHA manual for the disposal of gasoline water or the FDA's safety inspection criteria for meat handling?

Don't take what a politician says at face value.. odds are he's lying, mistating or leaving out vital facts. (like the crap the Dem's are doing on the shutdown of the steel mill being Romney's doing. (He set the policies that Bain used.. but by then he was out of leading it), or the suit that the GOP is accusing the president of steeling the right to vote from the military members.)

Consider the source.. all those SuperPACs with names like 'America for Patriots'.. they don't always reflect what they say they represent.

Look into the men shaping the policies and ads of the elections. A lot of the GOP strategists leading the charge have learned from the Nixon white house and had fifty years of learning to hide their lies.

[AndyZ]

Yes, that's why I try to get the other side on things.

I'd love to read more about debates between people on the left and people on the right, who are very educated and can explain things where both sides are trying to be honest, but it seems to be quite a rarity.

You've probably already heard about the things where government groups will ban home-grown food from consumption, or how an endangered insect keeps people from being able to repair their houses.  Stories about kids' lemonade stands getting shut down are a dime a dozen.  These are the kinds of things that don't really block big businesses but hurt small businesses.

What about the idea of going through the various codes line by line, and seeing what things are redundant and can be streamlined?

[Callie Del Noire]

Yes, that's why I try to get the other side on things.

I'd love to read more about debates between people on the left and people on the right, who are very educated and can explain things where both sides are trying to be honest, but it seems to be quite a rarity.

You've probably already heard about the things where government groups will ban home-grown food from consumption, or how an endangered insect keeps people from being able to repair their houses.  Stories about kids' lemonade stands getting shut down are a dime a dozen.  These are the kinds of things that don't really block big businesses but hurt small businesses.

What about the idea of going through the various codes line by line, and seeing what things are redundant and can be streamlined?

The 'Raw Milk/Eggs' crisis that the FDA is so hellbound on? The one that some sources say were instigated by the dairy industry to go after the 'fringe'? Along with the push to remove 'organic' and 'hormone free' labels from milk as un-needed and such.

Anyone that has looked into the Bovine Growth Hormone issues know that if damn near EVERY other first world nation bans it that there has to be some concerns.. And what is so wrong with labellings things as being BGH free? I don't want to drink the stuff. It's amazing how much 'unhealthy' things pop up that are counter to the Corporate Food industry.

You grow crops cross containated by Monsanto's hybrid/gene altered corn/soy.. it's YOUR fault and you get sued. It's YOUR fault..their pollen blows into your field.. and YOU are the one stealing their copyrighted product. (Please show me how to control stray pollen).

The corporations quash studies into the nutrition value of hybrid/frankenfood crops. They push down moves to label products for gene-altered content. You get cross contamination from gene-altered crops taht were never considered for human consumption. Look into crop diversity counts.. since Monsanto and others got the right to copyright life forms.

And when the Organic farming trends came out.. suddenly it was 'unsafe' to use cleaning methods that weren't hugely industrial at the same time as the number of investigators in meat packing plants and food service were culled down to a fifty year low. As a percentage today, food safety inspections of meat packing plants and such are an all time low. I'm willing to bet it's nearly the lowest since the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Today.. it is ILLEGAL to write something as truthful about the industry as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. 

Persecuting the Amish for selling 'raw milk' and folks for selling home grown food is great ways to distract from the fact that folks are dying from food processing mistakes by big industry. And they don't have the big law firms to protect themselves either.

[AndyZ]

The way I figure it, you should be able to sell whichever kind you want and let the public decide what they want to buy.  Now, I'd want it to be illegal to have things like broken glass in food, but that's something you could sue for and/or get the violator arrested for anyway.

Now, labels would still have to be accurate, but if someone wants to pay 3 cents for a pound for some animal that most people wouldn't want to eat, let them sell it.  If people actually want it, it'll sell, and if not, the market will take it down on its own.

Your various examples only show how the major corporations and government collude on these things, and the regulations don't actually hurt big business.

Now, compare an article about how New York City has banned food donations to homeless shelters "because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content": http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/19/bloomberg-strikes-again-nyc-bans-food-donations-to-the-homeless/

Of course, you can look at what else Bloomberg has banned and it stops being a surprise.

Now, would some of the companies attempt to take advantage?  Possibly.  Labeling is still important, but we still have enough medical experts and studies done in order to ascertain what is and isn't good for you.  However, not every business would immediately fall into the idea of selling you the worst crap they possibly could.  Even if many of them did, enough farms and such would start up simply to have better stuff, like the organic farm types of things have popped up.

I maintain that big businesses like having all the regulations, because it makes it harder for people like the Amish and small farms.

[Callie Del Noire]

Wow..

Just.. wow..

bloomberg once again blows my ability to put things to words.. wow.....

[MasterMischief]

Stories about kids' lemonade stands getting shut down are a dime a dozen.

No.  Not really.  Unless you are watching Fox News or any other countless propaganda machines.  Of course when you start digging deeper...

Will Obamacare Kill Off White Castle?

Warning: Mother Jones is liberal, so feel free to discount out of hand.

Now, would some of the companies attempt to take advantage?  Possibly.

Possibly?  Possibly?!

[AndyZ]

http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/155167/158/County-Shuts-Down-Kids-Lemonade-Stand-500-Fine

http://bcove.me/b5wzkasu

http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Coralville-Police-Shutdown-Several-Childrens-Lemonade-Stands-126592563.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/08/portland_lemonade_stand_runs_i.html  (In this one, at least, one of the chairmen has the sense to tell the inspectors to back off later on)

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/07/sf_cops_lemonade_stand.php

Do you need more?

Possibly?  Possibly?!

Why would it be profitable?  Look what happened to Ford when they tried to cut corners on their recall; they got the pants sued off of them and the media dragged them through the mud.  You think big business is more scared of the government than they are of a fiasco which nosedives their sales?

I don't really understand the idea that corporations will gladly gouge their customers in order to make a profit.  Unhappy customers are not repeat customers unless there's a monopoly, and lowering the barrier to entry is the best way to avoid monopolies.

I also don't really see any correlation between the kids' lemonade and the White Castle, so you'll have to enlighten me there.

[Serephino]

Yeah, but how many people got hurt before they issued a recall?  I read something a while ago that a Chinese company wanted to sell us plastic cars because they were cheaper.  Unfortunately, they're also death traps.  Engines get hot, and plastic melts.  Add a really hot summer day and moving at say, 65mph...  Those cheap cars didn't come anywhere close to meeting US safety standards.

I can't drink my own water without getting sick.  When I get out of the shower I smell like I've just been in a public pool.  Why?  Because my house is at the beginning of the town water system.  My water has twice the amount of chlorine it's supposed to, and at the end of the system they have half the chlorine they're supposed to.  It's a major design flaw that's been a problem since I was a kid.  It hasn't been fixed because no one has come in and made the water company do so.  All they have to do is give everyone an annual report, and they only have to fix it if certain chemicals of a certain level are detected during testing.  Chlorine is supposed to be in the water, and is relatively safe, so why bother?  I mean, just because my boyfriend and I were drinking a lot of tap water, both felt really sick for a long period of time, and said illness magically went away when we started buying distilled water, that doesn't mean anything. 

I swear, there is a recall of something every other week.  Companies sell stuff that isn't safe, and they probably know it.  It's all about how to produce the product as cheaply as possible, then sell it at the best profit.  They could go years without major incident, with only a few people getting hurt.  But tell me, if it was your baby that was killed by a faulty crib/playpen, wouldn't it piss you off that they were allowed to sell such shoddy crap?  You assume that since it's on store shelves it's safe, but that's really not true.  Pick up some gummy candy made in China sometime and look at the ingredients.  They use titanium dioxide.  Do you really want to eat metal?  I don't, which is why I refuse to buy gummy candy made in China without checking the ingredients first. 

I personally don't think we should buy any food from China.  They feed their own people plastic rice that's killing them for crying out loud.  They don't care.  Then there was that whole thing with arsenic in apple juice from China.  The FDA swore up and down it was relatively safe, and then they made it so juice companies didn't have to put on the label where the juice came from.  Oh, yeah, I really really want to eat titanium dioxide and drink arsenic!  And did juice companies stop buying concentrate from China?  Nope.  The they took advantage of not having to admit it anymore. 

I don't know if it's true, but my boyfriend told me Betty Crocker got in trouble for putting an addictive substance in their food.  I've heard McDonalds is suspected of the same, but no evidence has been found.  I can only imagine what would be in our food and drink if there were no regulations, because the fact of the matter is large companies have no problem doing underhanded shit they try to hide from their customers.  You can't just buy from their competitor when you don't know they're doing something like that.  And here's a thought, what if the competition does it too?  If it makes a good profit for company A, then why wouldn't company B jump at it too, and just undercut the price a few cents?

[js207]

The closing part of the 'Mother Jones' defense of ObamaCare is unintentionally almost hilarious - that it's really a good thing for their staff because it will"liberate" them from their jobs, after it cuts their hours (and income).

On the bright side, in exchange for the half-trillion dollar Medicare cuts, it only leaves 30m uninsured, instead of the 30m uninsured otherwise...

[AndyZ]

Yeah, but how many people got hurt before they issued a recall?  I read something a while ago that a Chinese company wanted to sell us plastic cars because they were cheaper.  Unfortunately, they're also death traps.  Engines get hot, and plastic melts.  Add a really hot summer day and moving at say, 65mph...  Those cheap cars didn't come anywhere close to meeting US safety standards.

I can't drink my own water without getting sick.  When I get out of the shower I smell like I've just been in a public pool.  Why?  Because my house is at the beginning of the town water system.  My water has twice the amount of chlorine it's supposed to, and at the end of the system they have half the chlorine they're supposed to.  It's a major design flaw that's been a problem since I was a kid.  It hasn't been fixed because no one has come in and made the water company do so.  All they have to do is give everyone an annual report, and they only have to fix it if certain chemicals of a certain level are detected during testing.  Chlorine is supposed to be in the water, and is relatively safe, so why bother?  I mean, just because my boyfriend and I were drinking a lot of tap water, both felt really sick for a long period of time, and said illness magically went away when we started buying distilled water, that doesn't mean anything. 

I swear, there is a recall of something every other week.  Companies sell stuff that isn't safe, and they probably know it.  It's all about how to produce the product as cheaply as possible, then sell it at the best profit.  They could go years without major incident, with only a few people getting hurt.  But tell me, if it was your baby that was killed by a faulty crib/playpen, wouldn't it piss you off that they were allowed to sell such shoddy crap?  You assume that since it's on store shelves it's safe, but that's really not true.  Pick up some gummy candy made in China sometime and look at the ingredients.  They use titanium dioxide.  Do you really want to eat metal?  I don't, which is why I refuse to buy gummy candy made in China without checking the ingredients first. 

I personally don't think we should buy any food from China.  They feed their own people plastic rice that's killing them for crying out loud.  They don't care.  Then there was that whole thing with arsenic in apple juice from China.  The FDA swore up and down it was relatively safe, and then they made it so juice companies didn't have to put on the label where the juice came from.  Oh, yeah, I really really want to eat titanium dioxide and drink arsenic!  And did juice companies stop buying concentrate from China?  Nope.  The they took advantage of not having to admit it anymore. 

I don't know if it's true, but my boyfriend told me Betty Crocker got in trouble for putting an addictive substance in their food.  I've heard McDonalds is suspected of the same, but no evidence has been found.  I can only imagine what would be in our food and drink if there were no regulations, because the fact of the matter is large companies have no problem doing underhanded shit they try to hide from their customers.  You can't just buy from their competitor when you don't know they're doing something like that.  And here's a thought, what if the competition does it too?  If it makes a good profit for company A, then why wouldn't company B jump at it too, and just undercut the price a few cents?

See, the water company has a monopoly.  As I've already explained, monopolies are bad.

A lot of the issue with the government stuff is that they have monopolies.  Some things, like public schools, you can buy a private school education, but not all.  There's no way to get away from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation if you want to use public roads, which is why you get stuff like this:



Full story here: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/08/penndot_blames_squirrelly_road.html  For those of you reading who aren't in PA, this is only the most recent story.

The change in the logic is that you wouldn't just assume it was safe because it was on shelves.  But then, can you really assume that now?  If companies are always doing these recalls, if the FDA lets these poisonous things go through, what the crap are these agencies even doing?  Why are we spending billions of dollars on them?

One big part of the argument for privatizing a lot of the companies like PennDoT is that it gets rid of the monopoly problem.  If we don't like the shoddy job that a company is doing, we can fire them and hire someone better.

Now, I'll certainly agree that you don't want to give carte blanche.  By all means put people in jail or sue their pants off if they knowingly put harmful substances in the food.  However, why do we need federal agencies dedicated to that?  Negligence charges would be enough for the local cops to arrest them and the FDA doesn't hire you a lawyer when you take them to court.

If you open things up for others to start in, rather than buckling down with rules and regulations so that small businesses can't really compete, then someone out there is going to do things honestly.  Why wouldn't they when people want the product?  Some people out there only want the cheapest possible thing, but a lot of people want quality stuff and are willing to pay a little more money so that it doesn't fall apart at the first touch.

If I hire someone to do a job for me and he can't do the job properly, I don't give him more money or hire on his brother as well.  I fire him and hire someone else.  It's callous, but attempting to do otherwise is what's bankrupting our system.

The closing part of the 'Mother Jones' defense of ObamaCare is unintentionally almost hilarious - that it's really a good thing for their staff because it will"liberate" them from their jobs, after it cuts their hours (and income).

On the bright side, in exchange for the half-trillion dollar Medicare cuts, it only leaves 30m uninsured, instead of the 30m uninsured otherwise...

I appreciate the effort, but you're not helping.  People aren't going to be swayed just because you tell them; you need to explain why it cuts their hours and their income, point out in Obama's own words how it cuts into Medicare and doesn't actually insure more people.  We have too many people simply saying things without being able to back them up (crap knows I'm not that great at this myself) and it would help more to have links and citations for something as huge as Obamacare.

[Oniya]

Did anyone else groan at the fact that the description of the road as 'squirrely' was a direct quote from PennDOT engineer Ambrosi?

[TheGlyphstone]

I was too busy giggling at the puns made by the commenters.

[AndyZ]

Believe me, it's nothing but excuses mixed in with bad puns.  They don't even care; it's not like they'll be seriously reprimanded or anything.

Pennsylvania is considered to have some of the worst roads in the country.  It's just a blatant example of the problems with government.  The question becomes whether we believe that more government will fix it, or maybe we should start getting rid of the crap we already have which isn't working.

It baffles me that people are so worried about private business screwing you over but don't mind when the government does it.  With a private business, you can choose to stop using them.  With the government, you don't get any choice.

[Serephino]

The reason the FDA isn't doing that great of a job is because they have limited power funding.  All that crap from China, they can't do anything.  There are no regulations when it comes to imported food, even though there should be.  There are strict standards in how much arsenic can be in apple juice produced in the US, but China, we have to rely on their laws, and there are none.  Like Callie said, when every other first world country bans something, but our government swears it's relatively safe, you really have to wonder. 

Okay, so part of your argument is that with a bunch of regulations, small business can't compete.  Do you really think they can compete now?  Let's use Walmart as an example.  They come in to an area and pretty much devastate the local economy.  They do this by selling their cheap crap from China cheaper than any small business who sells quality items made in the US ever could.  Maybe some people will take quality over saving money, but most will not.  If the majority cared more about quality, Walmart's strategy wouldn't work so well.  They can even operate at a loss for a while because the corporation is so big the money they'd have to keep pumping in until all the competition is squashed is pocket change.  Then, once all major competition is gone, they raise their prices to operate at a profit again, which they don't have to raise very high, because again, cheap crap made in China...

If you wanted to open a store, how would you compete with that?  Even if you could manage to figure out how to sell the same stuff cheaper, they now have that price match guarantee thing.  They're also open 24/7, which is really handy if, like me, you're a night owl.  When I was little there used to be a lot of small, privately owned stores around here.  We used to do our grocery shopping at a locally owned store.  But then Giant Eagle came in and put them out of business.  Oh, and get this...  They did have union employees.  The small store they bought out had non union employees.  Guess which ones they kept?  They would only have to pay the non union employees minimum wage.  It was a very shitty thing to do, and perfectly legal.  It was also not made public knowledge.  The only reason I know what they did is because my mom's friend's son worked at the local store at the time. 

Business does not regulate itself.  They use dirty tricks to get ahead, and if they cross the line of the law a little, they can always pay someone to look the other way.  Small locally owned stores can't do that.  I see it every day.  Downtown is a ghost town, and when I was a kid there used to be tons of small businesses.  Walmart forced them all out.  I'm just hoping the shop I get my tea from stays afloat. 

Another example; I'm being held hostage by the propane company.  They used to be locally owned too, but then Suburban Propane came in and bought them out.  Their service is horrible, but they have other ways to keep customers from leaving.  If I cancel service, they charge a $175 tank collection fee.  I could always just not pay it, but it is a valid debt since it's part of their TOS.  It'll go to collections and I'll be harassed.  By law collection agencies are allowed to call once a day every day, and they will.  Some even ignore the law completely.  We recently had to change our number because one was calling my boyfriend about eleven times a day every day.  They kept it between the hours of 8am-8pm, but it was seriously like every hour on the hour.

Then there is the hit to my credit score.  In this modern society, your credit score is everything.  We can't get the electric bill under my boyfriend's name because of his bad credit.  We can't rent from anyone who does credit checks.  We couldn't get contracted cell phones, which is another good example.  Verizon really screwed us.  When they sent us the bill we had to send payment out right away, only we couldn't because, you know, you have to have money to pay a bill.  So he'd wait until he got paid.  The payment would often be a little late, and they shut his service off after 3 days.  It was really starting to piss us off, but of course, there was the contract, and the early termination fee.  When we were finally sick of it and wanted to cancel we found out that we had to do so the very day the contract first thing at 8am.  He didn't get through until 8:15 am, so the contract had already renewed, and we got slapped with a $200 early termination fee.

What I would really like to see is a tighter rein being put on all that underhanded shit.  I want to see it made easier for small business to succeed.  They need to stop spending all that time and money making sure the word 'ass' is bleeped out if kids might be watching, and put more effort into making sure big business can't charge outrageous fees for cancelling their service and trying to get better service.  Comcast does that too by the way.  I had to pay a fee for downgrading service when I was trying to save money.  All they had to do was press a few buttons.  Then, suddenly, dial up would've been faster.  When I complained their only suggestion was to upgrade, which I had to pay another fee for.  I didn't have much choice because pages were taking 5 minutes to load, if they loaded at all.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened there.   

[Trieste]

Probably what happened was the local wiring. Internet is only as good as its physical wiring, and bad wiring plus service downgrade can mean some real frustration.

So, there are clearly a lot of conspiracy theories about large stores and utility companies; um, corporations aren't flat evil most of the time. They do what they can get away with, yes, but there are compassionate people that do run some companies. I think what is being said (mostly, I gather, by Andy) is that if you let the free market loose and abolish monopolies properly, those companies that are compassionate will tend to do better than those that cut corners. It's not that far-fetched. If you've ever had your mom say something like "Nothing really cleans like Comet does" or "It just doesn't taste the same unless I use Bisquick", that's free market at work - the patrons have learned to trust the company, and in return the company earns brand loyalty. That person is more likely to choose that brand preferentially for the rest of their life.

There have been urban legends about addictive substances in food for ages. Canadians joke about 'something in Timmy's coffee'. These are myths that should be disregarded until proven, because we have examples, concrete examples, of companies putting addictive substances in their products. Cigarettes? Still going, despite transparency. Early edition Coca-Cola? People loved it.

It should be noted that free market economics do not support healthy products; they support effective products. (And by the way, arsenic is present in low concentrations naturally in the human body. In fact, some studies suggest that we need a certain level of arsenic in our bodies.) If a product is toxic but effective, it will sell. So I think that the arguments about safety standards are probably a red herring, because arsenic-based makeups, heroin-based tonics, and Radium-infused 'health water' did absolutely fine as consumer products before regulations were brought to bear.

[Oniya]

There have been urban legends about addictive substances in food for ages. Canadians joke about 'something in Timmy's coffee'. These are myths that should be disregarded until proven, because we have examples, concrete examples, of companies putting addictive substances in their products. Cigarettes? Still going, despite transparency. Early edition Coca-Cola? People loved it.

Would that be the pre-1903 'early edition'?  :-)

[Caela]

The reason the FDA isn't doing that great of a job is because they have limited power funding.  All that crap from China, they can't do anything.  There are no regulations when it comes to imported food, even though there should be.  There are strict standards in how much arsenic can be in apple juice produced in the US, but China, we have to rely on their laws, and there are none.  Like Callie said, when every other first world country bans something, but our government swears it's relatively safe, you really have to wonder. 

Limited power funding may be a part of the problem, BUT, I think a bigger part of the problem is that you have a regulatory agency hiring people that used to be researchers and executives from the very industry they are supposed to be regulating. The FDA has no business hiring people that used to work for companies like Monsanto, ever. Wanting people with a good business or science base, so that they can have a better grasp of the business and science precepts involved in their job makes sense, but you hire them from industries that are not under your watch.

When the wolf is running the hen house, you can't be surprised when he wants chicken for dinner.

[AndyZ]

Thanks, Trieste.  I'm not really always that good at explaining.

As examples of the brand loyalty, would you possibly suggest the propane company to your friends?  If you or a friend or lover has a car, I'd recommend driving the tank right down to their office and dropping it off, which should save you the collection fee issue.  They'll probably balk, but they didn't have to collect it from you and can't charge you.

Now, think about this: how insane does a company have to be in order to do this?  How do they possibly expect to get any new customers?  Why would anyone sign up for them knowing that they can't get out?  When you can start up another company without issue, people will flock to that one.

Now, the China issue is definitely a problem, and I do support tariffs.  China's deliberately devaluing their currency in order to make things cheaper, but our government doesn't seem to want to do anything about that.

If people want to buy stuff that's toxic, though, my only issue is when I have to breathe it.  I wouldn't care about cigarettes at all if being within 10 feet of one didn't send me into hacking fits, and if people want to be pretty for the next five minutes of their life, as long as the stuff is marked as dangerous, go for it.

Caela makes a great point about why the government solution doesn't work: there's way too much collusion between government and business.  You can't trust government to keep business under control when the two work together so closely.

Rather than attempting to separate the two, though, the easier method is to stop letting the government control this stuff and giving the breaks to their sponsors.  I'll cede that it's not a perfect solution, but certainly it's better than what we're doing now.  I don't see any reason why giving more power to government would make things better when it's only made things worse so far.

[Serephino]

Probably what happened was the local wiring. Internet is only as good as its physical wiring, and bad wiring plus service downgrade can mean some real frustration.

So, there are clearly a lot of conspiracy theories about large stores and utility companies; um, corporations aren't flat evil most of the time. They do what they can get away with, yes, but there are compassionate people that do run some companies. I think what is being said (mostly, I gather, by Andy) is that if you let the free market loose and abolish monopolies properly, those companies that are compassionate will tend to do better than those that cut corners. It's not that far-fetched. If you've ever had your mom say something like "Nothing really cleans like Comet does" or "It just doesn't taste the same unless I use Bisquick", that's free market at work - the patrons have learned to trust the company, and in return the company earns brand loyalty. That person is more likely to choose that brand preferentially for the rest of their life.

There have been urban legends about addictive substances in food for ages. Canadians joke about 'something in Timmy's coffee'. These are myths that should be disregarded until proven, because we have examples, concrete examples, of companies putting addictive substances in their products. Cigarettes? Still going, despite transparency. Early edition Coca-Cola? People loved it.

It should be noted that free market economics do not support healthy products; they support effective products. (And by the way, arsenic is present in low concentrations naturally in the human body. In fact, some studies suggest that we need a certain level of arsenic in our bodies.) If a product is toxic but effective, it will sell. So I think that the arguments about safety standards are probably a red herring, because arsenic-based makeups, heroin-based tonics, and Radium-infused 'health water' did absolutely fine as consumer products before regulations were brought to bear.

The first study you have there talks about levels of chemicals in urine.  There's ammonia in urine too.  If you found out your favorite drink contained ammonia in it, and a significant amount, would you keep drinking it?  Our blood has iron in it.  In fact, it's what helps our red blood cells carry oxygen, so it's kinda vital.  Too much can make you sick.  Too much of anything can make you sick.  Even drinking too much water is bad because it dilutes your blood and causes anemia.  The caffeine in a cup of coffee makes you more alert.  Chugging two energy drinks just might give you a heart attack.  So just because a small amount isn't harmful, doesn't mean a larger amount is safe too.  It's kind of like taking an over the counter supplement or diet pill and assuming it's safe because the label says it's all natural.  The FDA has a limit on how much arsenic can be in water and juice and so forth.  The apple juice concentrate from China had double, and in some cases, triple what the FDA says is a safe amount.  However, the FDA can't regulate imports like that, and China just doesn't give a crap.  They sold us toys made with lead paint, and Walmart had a massive recall, was it two years ago?

What Caela said is a very good point.  Things are a mess right now, but that doesn't mean the answer is to get rid of regulations.  If it weren't for the government telling tobacco companies they had to put warning labels on cigarettes, they wouldn't.  In fact, for quite some time, they were swearing that cigarettes weren't harmful at all.  The danger is consuming something that's toxic without knowing it.  I mean, do you even read the ingredients in what you eat?  Most people don't, and half the time you need a degree in chemistry to understand it anyway.

It is most definitely not a good idea for people who regulate something to have a special interest.  That shouldn't be allowed.  I'm not saying give the government more power, just rearrange it some.  Priorities need to be changed.  It's the government's job to see to our welfare, and they need to be able to do that.  The current system isn't working.  Self-regulating industry is what caused this train wreck we call an economy.  Letting it continue on is only going to make the problem worse.  Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  We had the roaring 20's, and then the Great Depression.  In the 80's and 90's, business was booming, and greed was good, and then... um... yeah...   

[Trieste]

... dilute your... anemia?! Do yourself a favor and before you try to talk about water poisoning again, please google osmotic pressure and how it affects the body. Jesus fucking christ.

Serephino, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and apparently only read half of my links (that is, one out of the whole two I posted). You took one sentence - which was more of an interesting aside than the main thrust - and proceeded to use it as a straw man to try to rebut an argument I didn't make. What I actually said was that market forces don't prevent toxic products.

There are no words for how much ignorance is in that post.

[Oniya]

For some more reliable effects of too much iron in drinking water, check this page.  Most of them have to do with aesthetics and taste of the water.  There are a few blood disorders that mess with your iron levels, and might require a low-iron diet, but unless you've got sickle-cell trait, hemochromatosis or thalassemia, dietary iron (including that in water) shouldn't be an issue.

High-iron drinking water (10 mg/L) still contains far less than the NIH's maximum tolerable limit for daily iron consumption (see table 5) of 45 mg/day (unless you're drinking over a gallon of water in a day, in which case, you've probably got other problems.)

[js207]

The reason the FDA isn't doing that great of a job is because they have limited power funding.  All that crap from China, they can't do anything.  There are no regulations when it comes to imported food, even though there should be.

Unfortunately, that bit simply isn't even close to true - as anyone caught trying to bring a Kinder Surprise egg into the US will know first-hand. They are illegal, because they contain a toy. Is there any justification for the rule? Not much - but it does indeed get enforced, however stupid. Yes, they screw up and let stuff slip through that isn't allowed sometimes - hell, they can't manage to stop crack cocaine at the border effectively - but they certainly can and do ban foreign food when the government actually feels like it.

What I would really like to see is a tighter rein being put on all that underhanded shit.  I want to see it made easier for small business to succeed.  They need to stop spending all that time and money making sure the word 'ass' is bleeped out if kids might be watching, and put more effort into making sure big business can't charge outrageous fees for cancelling their service and trying to get better service.  Comcast does that too by the way.  I had to pay a fee for downgrading service when I was trying to save money.  All they had to do was press a few buttons.  Then, suddenly, dial up would've been faster.  When I complained their only suggestion was to upgrade, which I had to pay another fee for.  I didn't have much choice because pages were taking 5 minutes to load, if they loaded at all.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened there.   

You've got a point there, but if you think that lot is bad, try cancelling your subscription to government services... not to mention that the phone and cable monopolies you complain about were both government-granted.

That's the real problem: it's not that the government can't act, or doesn't have the resources to act - just that it uses them for its own agenda, not one that benefits you. Do they care about your crappy roads, or your Verizon bill (where they get a cut of every bill, remember)? Of course not - and making them richer wouldn't change that.

[AndyZ]

We had the roaring 20's, and then the Great Depression.  In the 80's and 90's, business was booming, and greed was good, and then... um... yeah...   

So let's take a look.

During the roaring 20s, we had Calvin Coolidge, who was very huge on small government.  Then we had Hoover, who I think of as the GWB of his time, a non-conservative Republican who flubbed things horrendously.  FDR came in trying to hypersize government, and as Dave Barry put it, giving us huge government programs so that we'd never again be without huge government programs.

When FDR started putting regulations on tires, he brought in Goodyear, Goodrich and Firestone, three big businesses that got to set the rules and decide how things should be run.  There were other companies at the time, like the Pharis Rubber Company.  Where are they now?  Ground under the boots of the big boys with government backing.  FDR did all kinds of these programs to lift people out of poverty and give people jobs, but the Great Depression never ended until he left office.

You've already heard it repeated about how the 50s really picked up as a boom also.  What happened?  LBJ's Great Society.

This is a pattern that often repeats itself, not with Democrats and Republicans but with how big or small they make government.

I think everyone else has made the rest of the pertinent points, though I may have missed something.

[Callie Del Noire]

So let's take a look.

During the roaring 20s, we had Calvin Coolidge, who was very huge on small government.  Then we had Hoover, who I think of as the GWB of his time, a non-conservative Republican who flubbed things horrendously.  FDR came in trying to hypersize government, and as Dave Barry put it, giving us huge government programs so that we'd never again be without huge government programs.

When FDR started putting regulations on tires, he brought in Goodyear, Goodrich and Firestone, three big businesses that got to set the rules and decide how things should be run.  There were other companies at the time, like the Pharis Rubber Company.  Where are they now?  Ground under the boots of the big boys with government backing.  FDR did all kinds of these programs to lift people out of poverty and give people jobs, but the Great Depression never ended until he left office.

You've already heard it repeated about how the 50s really picked up as a boom also.  What happened?  LBJ's Great Society.

This is a pattern that often repeats itself, not with Democrats and Republicans but with how big or small they make government.

I think everyone else has made the rest of the pertinent points, though I may have missed something.

LBJ was the 60s Andy.. the SURGE of the 50s came from having the only first world economy what wasn't rebuilding from 10 years of World War.

And there are good arguments to be made that Coolidge's small government is the reason the crash took place. Lack of governmental oversight in questionable practices like buying MASSIVE amounts of stock on margin then not having the cash when the purchases came due..

Sort of like how the fact that had Glass/Stegall never been repealed we'd never have had HUGE banks who had no seperation between commercial and investment functions. And we might not have the investment bankers passing the poison pill of mortgages around wall street for YEARS before the crash hit if we'd have the investigative strength to look into charges or regulate.

[AndyZ]

I wasn't claiming that LBJ was responsible for the surge.  According to my hypothesis, his Great Society actually slowed that surge.

[Callie Del Noire]

I wasn't claiming that LBJ was responsible for the surge.  According to my hypothesis, his Great Society actually slowed that surge.

It could be argued that that industry outside the country caught up with us.

The Marshall Plan did a LOT to stabilize western Europe. Otherwise we'd have some of the stupidity we had in oh.. Afganistan in the 80s/90s and parts of Africa.

[AndyZ]

Possibly.  It could be a coincidence, but when things keep repeating themselves, you start to wonder.

[Callie Del Noire]

Possibly.  It could be a coincidence, but when things keep repeating themselves, you start to wonder.

Okay.. take two world wars.. both devestated most of Western Europe.

The 1st World War...
-German had HUGE inflation... we're talking BILLION Mark coins.. I've seen them
-The French took every opportunity to exact reparations. They literally trucked out machinery from factory to cover the costs that Germany owed.. destroying the means of manufacturing. Aside from giving Hitler a foot up years later, it makes it hard to rebuild your country when the tools are gone. Had Stalin been more ... collected by the time he signed the non-agression pact with Hitler, he'd have already owned most of Eastern Europe, but he was too busy killing his domestic rivals.

2nd World War.
-It is very easy to argue that the means of production was definitely destroyed in Germany, France and many other countries. Japan's economy was literally being rebuilt as we engineered a sea change from a feudal society to a modern on.
-The Marshall plan rebuilt German and the equivalent reinvestment in Japan literally made them the produciton strong houses they are today. We gave them modern means of manufacturing that we, the US, didn't have completely ourselves. Domestic industry had to BUY their own machinery.

Without actions like the Marshal Plan, we'd have a much weaker Western Europe, and you'd see a lot more economies like Eastern Europe.

Take a look at what we did when we 'won' in Afgansitan in the 80s. 'Job done' and pulled out. Along came the taliban. That was a joy. We have no industrial infrastructure and no educational system to speak of (The russians had this wonderful habit of shooting teachers and leaders that opposed them). Had we followed Charlie Wilson's suggestion and rebuilt the Afgan government and economy at the least we'd have reduced internal political stress in Pakistan (a nuclear power), no allies for Bin Laden and a more stable government beside Iran.

But the difference is folks like Dick Cheney hadn't realized how much money could be made in 'country building' in no bid contracts. (Ironic that the folks who pushed through all those 'no bids' are the same ones who want less oversight on business here?)

[AndyZ]

I may just be tired, but I'm not seeing what most of this has to do with big and small government, other than no bid contracts, and more examples of where big government has completely messed things up.

The idiocy of no bid contracts, however, doesn't mean that other ideas that a group has don't also work, though.  Besides, are you really going to say that Cheney is for small government?

[Callie Del Noire]

I may just be tired, but I'm not seeing what most of this has to do with big and small government, other than no bid contracts, and more examples of where big government has completely messed things up.

The idiocy of no bid contracts, however, doesn't mean that other ideas that a group has don't also work, though.  Besides, are you really going to say that Cheney is for small government?

The arguement I'm presenting is.. the 'downsizing' that the GOP is pusshing is ill considered. They want LESS Regulation, except in certain areas.

Had Glass/Stegall not been repealed in '95, we might not have as big credit crunch when the housing crisis hit. I'd, personally, would still be financially solvent and my Thrift Savings plan would have been large enough to provide me with a safe nest egg a decade hence rather than being less than what I put into it.

Had we not downsized the FDA, how many of these 'tainted' food outbreaks of botulism and such not occured. How much SAFER would the food packing industry be?

Yet, it's 'common sense' to downsize OSHA, the FDA, The FCC, FAA and other agencies without considering impact on the public.

[AndyZ]

Ah, there's the rub.

They want LESS Regulation, except in certain areas.

Yeah, I'm not GOP.  Cut the Republican big government stuff as well as the Democrat big government stuff.

I think we're at the point where we agree that there are things that we can cut but that we don't want anarchism. 

Poor attempt at comedic effect

Like, the Testicle Search Administration.  Does it make us safer that we can't carry a bottled water onto an airplane or that we have to choose between keeping the government out of our privates or avoiding the Cancertron 9000 machines that were banned in Europe?

We know that cuts have to be made because we take in more debt than we earn in GDP.  That means that mathematically we cannot just raise taxes in order to handle all our spending.  You could steal all the money of the "1%" and only get a few trillion, which would devastate the economy when all their businesses just up and disappear and they stop buying anything, but wouldn't fix our debt.

If you compare the market to an ecosystem, then government is a parasite, sucking up funds without providing a comparable benefit, while most businesses offer some sort of trade and equitable situation.  (Not every business is fair to its customers thanks to monopolies, but bear with me.)  Now, government is a necessity, but the trick to any parasite is for it to stay small, because if it needs too much nourishment, it'll kill off its host.

Wealth can actually be created and destroyed.  Many companies have created things which never existed before, and sell them in order to make profit.  People buy them because they want them.  Now, when there's a problem, if businesses aren't checking for it, it becomes a media scandal.  They lose their good name and people stop buying from them, and often enough they simply go out of business as a result.

People look to government to solve these problems, but look how many of its own problems the government still hasn't been able to fix.  The inevitable result is that government and business get all buddy-buddy and offer each other favors.

Limited government is not a perfect solution, but certainly it's a better solution than big government.  When we can trust limited government to not be corrupt (which is never in my mind, but maybe with a non-human government) then maybe we can consider going towards big government and see if we really can get a perfect solution.

[Callie Del Noire]

oint where we agree that there are things that we can cut but that we don't want anarchism. 

Poor attempt at comedic effect

Like, the Testicle Search Administration.  Does it make us safer that we can't carry a bottled water onto an airplane or that we have to choose between keeping the government out of our privates or avoiding the Cancertron 9000 machines that were banned in Europe?

We know that cuts have to be made because we take in more debt than we earn in GDP.  That means that mathematically we cannot just raise taxes in order to handle all our spending.  You could steal all the money of the "1%" and only get a few trillion, which would devastate the economy when all their businesses just up and disappear and they stop buying anything, but wouldn't fix our debt.

If you compare the market to an ecosystem, then government is a parasite, sucking up funds without providing a comparable benefit, while most businesses offer some sort of trade and equitable situation.  (Not every business is fair to its customers thanks to monopolies, but bear with me.)  Now, government is a necessity, but the trick to any parasite is for it to stay small, because if it needs too much nourishment, it'll kill off its host.

Wealth can actually be created and destroyed.  Many companies have created things which never existed before, and sell them in order to make profit.  People buy them because they want them.  Now, when there's a problem, if businesses aren't checking for it, it becomes a media scandal.  They lose their good name and people stop buying from them, and often enough they simply go out of business as a result.

People look to government to solve these problems, but look how many of its own problems the government still hasn't been able to fix.  The inevitable result is that government and business get all buddy-buddy and offer each other favors.

Limited government is not a perfect solution, but certainly it's a better solution than big government.  When we can trust limited government to not be corrupt (which is never in my mind, but maybe with a non-human government) then maybe we can consider going towards big government and see if we really can get a perfect solution.

As to the first thing.. Ain't fear a lovely thing?

Too many things in the last decade and change have been done to 'protect us'. One day we'll wake up and realize how much of our children's liberty we've given away. The latest atrocity is that the courts have ruled the authorities do NOT need a warrant to track your GPS enabled phones.

My point is.. we need regulatory authority. We've got companies who make GOBS of money by claiming a patent on hyperlinks and such, because the folks in congress won't give the patent office the right to change the patent code.

When I hear 'small government' come out of the mouth of a politician.. it's just before they start talking about killing another regulatory agency.

You know.. 9/11 aside, we've been fairly lucky in the terrorist front.. when I was growing up in Ireland.. there was a terrorist incident every few weeks. Like the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the killing of the mounted guard in London.. I even had a picnic on an IRA landmine that killed something like 2 dozen English soldiers.

It's not just the downsizing of government.. look into the policy of 'Imperial Presidency'. Both parties are bad on it.

Big Government isnt' automatically bad..and Small Government isn't always good. Look into what the RESULTS are.

Do you realize without Government regulations, some of which are being called 'irrelevant', we would not be as healthy or safe as we are now?

Look into the studies on Bovine Growth Hormone.. oh yeah.. you CAN'T find many in the US.. Legislation has quashed it..and what that hasn't.. the lovely folks at Monsanto have lawsuited out of the public eye.

Used to be.. the media was theone of the public's watchdogs.. not it isn't. Now 'downsizing' governement is going to eliminate another.

[AndyZ]

This is going to make me sound like a dick, but bear with me.

You mention a lot of the problems involving Congress, legislation, and so on.  You then mention that we need more government to fix it.

Why do you believe that when the government we have now is crap, and things only seem to get worse the more we add, more government will be somehow better?

[Callie Del Noire]

This is going to make me sound like a dick, but bear with me.

You mention a lot of the problems involving Congress, legislation, and so on.  You then mention that we need more government to fix it.

Why do you believe that when the government we have now is crap, and things only seem to get worse the more we add, more government will be somehow better?

What do we need to fix it?

Responsible voters. People willing to think for themselves, realize that not everything coming out of CNN/MSNBC/Fox is the truth..that we've been played for the last 15 to 20 years REALLY bad by the leadership of the GoP (not our elected officals.. but the party leaders) and to a slightly LESSER (and only SLIGHTLY) degree by the Democrats.

We've been lazy, stupid and apathetic as a nation since watergate. We have let special interests hijack the republic. Accept that in a growing world like ours.. RULES and REGULATIONS have to come from somoene. Would you rather it be someone remotely answerable to US the voting public.. because in the end.. if we pull the thumb out of our butt and start even MARGINALLY voting informed poltiticians will start listening to us..rather than the NRA, Big Oil, Wall Street, Rupert Murdock and the rest.

Second.. start calling your officials, email them. push for reform. We can motivate ourselves.. that was the best thing I saw in 08. People voting.. pro or con.. they voted..

I seriously want to slap everyone who says 'my vote don't count.'. Listen to your candidates.. consider what they are saying. 'I'm for education' doesn't mean much when you gut the DoE, push through abominations like 'No Child Left Behind' and send your kids to private schools.

The men and women running for office today aren't our best.. you know why?

Because the best won't run. They don't want to put their spouses and children up against the paparizzi. We get weasels and partisan hacks when we should be voting for LEADERS.  A lot of my frustration right now? NOT ONE SINGLE member of either party running in my district would be my first choice. The GoP place holder drank the kool aid long ago..and the Democrat trying to run seems to live by the opinion polls. My senators are lying SOBs who have gotten into office by playing the factions of the state against themselves, lying better than their rivals.

You know what.. I looked over some of the people who dropped out of the game a while..and some of them have very valid opinions and ideas.. but they can't do anything because the older crowd won't step down.. the factions in control of the party assures that.

My brother ran for governor in 08.. didn't make it past the primaries.. because his 'friend' from college stabbed him in the back. The man stole damn near literally word for word, one of my brother's speeches. I met the other candidates that were running for the primary nomination.. 3 of them were like my brother.. younger, more conservative than me.. but not rabidly moral conservative but not the 'Party men' that the leaders wanted.

So they let my brother's 'friend' come in on the last moment on a party of stolen speeches, claims of 'reform' and 'small government' and attack adds. And once again the GoP went down in flames. Because rather than accept that some moderates would rather elect a moderate democrat than a rabid moral conservative who would listen not to the voters.. but the party cheifs and special interests.

Sooner or later.. there will be a successful movement.. I just hope that it doesn't require bodies in the streets like it did elsewhere. We're still able to reclaim our parties and government. It just requires accepting that this is something that will take time, hard choices and effort.

Taxes will go up. Period. Anyone that thinks simply cutting things willy nilly will fix it is a fool. Big government isn't the enemy. We wouldn't have our power grid, interstate highways and a lot of things we take for granted without it. Peeling the leeches of special interests off the brainstems of our officals is what is needed.

Otherwise.. I'm betting that within 10 years.. the next 'occupy movement' will wind up with blood in the streets and more fear-mongering. I made a similar prediction about terrorism in 1995 to a class full of people who thought I was foolish.  I made similar statements when I saw the draft of the Patriot act and our liberties...

I'd rather seen a candidate who LEADS get into office than one who so clearly going to fuck everyone but his corporate cronies.  Problem is.. good men don't see it as being safe to run for office.

That requires an aware and informed electorate. That requires accepting that unless we want to be China's bitch in the next 2 decades we have to change a ton of things. And accept that whatever budget we put through.. Taxes will go up.. for Everyone. It's going to hurt.. but then it always does. and that 'trickle down' and 'self regulating industry' are lies that don't work and never have.

And most importantly, we need leaders to cross the aisle, shake the hand of their rival party members and work together.

I'm done.. I got four fingers of Maker's Mark waiting for me.. I'm sorry I'm preaching.. I'm just tired of five damn calls a day by both parties, not hearing an election ad without fear in it.. and wishing the Government I served for the better part of 2 decades measured up to the one I was taught about.

I'm putting myself on a 1 or 2 day STFU.

[Trieste]

So let's take a look.

During the roaring 20s, we had Calvin Coolidge, who was very huge on small government.  Then we had Hoover, who I think of as the GWB of his time, a non-conservative Republican who flubbed things horrendously.  FDR came in trying to hypersize government, and as Dave Barry put it, giving us huge government programs so that we'd never again be without huge government programs.

When FDR started putting regulations on tires, he brought in Goodyear, Goodrich and Firestone, three big businesses that got to set the rules and decide how things should be run.  There were other companies at the time, like the Pharis Rubber Company.  Where are they now?  Ground under the boots of the big boys with government backing.  FDR did all kinds of these programs to lift people out of poverty and give people jobs, but the Great Depression never ended until he left office.

You've already heard it repeated about how the 50s really picked up as a boom also.  What happened?  LBJ's Great Society.

This is a pattern that often repeats itself, not with Democrats and Republicans but with how big or small they make government.

I think everyone else has made the rest of the pertinent points, though I may have missed something.

Mmm, doesn't wash for me. Making sure I understand your hypothesis correctly, it seems that it can be boiled down (I'm simplifying; I know this) to big government = financial strain e.g. recession and depression, and small government = prosperity.

Your examples are comparing and contrasting the 20s vs. the Great Depression in the 30s, and using the 50s as a supporting example of prosperity.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both periods of prosperity followed two very major wars. Could be that we would have had prosperity in both places no matter what economic policy at the time was. I'm not sure I believe that. Wars cost money and drain coffers; if war provided economic booms, the US would have been in a huge economic upthrust in the early 90s when Desert Storm concluded, and there would have been a massive surge of the economy all through the past ten years due to fighting two... three (I think? Are we up to four?) major wars. The 90s weren't so bad but the past 10 years prove, I think, that war does not cause booms. I don't know that it's necessarily even correlated with booms at this point.

What I also find extremely interesting, though, is that the two examples of prosperity were times when the government had a great deal of control over the populace: Prohibition and the Red Scare. The propaganda machine was very strong during both decades in US history, so I would personally be wary of declaring either decade a rousing economic success without double-checking the numbers to back me up. They could confirm it. I don't know. But just as lemmings now have the reputation for walking off cliffs due to PR, it could be that the roaring 20s and the grand ol' 50s weren't all they're cracked up to be, financially.

Those are just a couple of the questions I have that make me extremely skeptical of your hypothesis, and I'm curious to know if you have any theories or data.

[MasterMischief]

They want LESS Regulation, except in certain areas.

This is the essence of my beef as well.  Everyone that I have heard call for small government (present company excluded)   are not the least bit interested in smaller government.  They just want to do away with particular programs or regulations their lobbies do not want.  The same people want to increase military spending, grow the border patrol, amend the constitution to prevent consenting adults from marrying, elevate Christianity to a special status, ect.

Ron Paul is an exception, but neither party takes him seriously.  I applaud him for standing up to the two parties, but I am not sure I agree with him.

[AndyZ]

What do we need to fix it?

Responsible voters. People willing to think for themselves, realize that not everything coming out of CNN/MSNBC/Fox is the truth..that we've been played for the last 15 to 20 years REALLY bad by the leadership of the GoP (not our elected officals.. but the party leaders) and to a slightly LESSER (and only SLIGHTLY) degree by the Democrats.

We've been lazy, stupid and apathetic as a nation since watergate. We have let special interests hijack the republic. Accept that in a growing world like ours.. RULES and REGULATIONS have to come from somoene. Would you rather it be someone remotely answerable to US the voting public.. because in the end.. if we pull the thumb out of our butt and start even MARGINALLY voting informed poltiticians will start listening to us..rather than the NRA, Big Oil, Wall Street, Rupert Murdock and the rest.

Second.. start calling your officials, email them. push for reform. We can motivate ourselves.. that was the best thing I saw in 08. People voting.. pro or con.. they voted..

I seriously want to slap everyone who says 'my vote don't count.'. Listen to your candidates.. consider what they are saying. 'I'm for education' doesn't mean much when you gut the DoE, push through abominations like 'No Child Left Behind' and send your kids to private schools.

The men and women running for office today aren't our best.. you know why?

Because the best won't run. They don't want to put their spouses and children up against the paparizzi. We get weasels and partisan hacks when we should be voting for LEADERS.  A lot of my frustration right now? NOT ONE SINGLE member of either party running in my district would be my first choice. The GoP place holder drank the kool aid long ago..and the Democrat trying to run seems to live by the opinion polls. My senators are lying SOBs who have gotten into office by playing the factions of the state against themselves, lying better than their rivals.

You know what.. I looked over some of the people who dropped out of the game a while..and some of them have very valid opinions and ideas.. but they can't do anything because the older crowd won't step down.. the factions in control of the party assures that.

My brother ran for governor in 08.. didn't make it past the primaries.. because his 'friend' from college stabbed him in the back. The man stole damn near literally word for word, one of my brother's speeches. I met the other candidates that were running for the primary nomination.. 3 of them were like my brother.. younger, more conservative than me.. but not rabidly moral conservative but not the 'Party men' that the leaders wanted.

So they let my brother's 'friend' come in on the last moment on a party of stolen speeches, claims of 'reform' and 'small government' and attack adds. And once again the GoP went down in flames. Because rather than accept that some moderates would rather elect a moderate democrat than a rabid moral conservative who would listen not to the voters.. but the party cheifs and special interests.

Sooner or later.. there will be a successful movement.. I just hope that it doesn't require bodies in the streets like it did elsewhere. We're still able to reclaim our parties and government. It just requires accepting that this is something that will take time, hard choices and effort.

Taxes will go up. Period. Anyone that thinks simply cutting things willy nilly will fix it is a fool. Big government isn't the enemy. We wouldn't have our power grid, interstate highways and a lot of things we take for granted without it. Peeling the leeches of special interests off the brainstems of our officals is what is needed.

Otherwise.. I'm betting that within 10 years.. the next 'occupy movement' will wind up with blood in the streets and more fear-mongering. I made a similar prediction about terrorism in 1995 to a class full of people who thought I was foolish.  I made similar statements when I saw the draft of the Patriot act and our liberties...

I'd rather seen a candidate who LEADS get into office than one who so clearly going to fuck everyone but his corporate cronies.  Problem is.. good men don't see it as being safe to run for office.

That requires an aware and informed electorate. That requires accepting that unless we want to be China's bitch in the next 2 decades we have to change a ton of things. And accept that whatever budget we put through.. Taxes will go up.. for Everyone. It's going to hurt.. but then it always does. and that 'trickle down' and 'self regulating industry' are lies that don't work and never have.

And most importantly, we need leaders to cross the aisle, shake the hand of their rival party members and work together.

I'm done.. I got four fingers of Maker's Mark waiting for me.. I'm sorry I'm preaching.. I'm just tired of five damn calls a day by both parties, not hearing an election ad without fear in it.. and wishing the Government I served for the better part of 2 decades measured up to the one I was taught about.

I'm putting myself on a 1 or 2 day STFU.

I definitely agree that our politics are completely messed up.  One of the things that I actually like about the Tea Party is their attempt to fix things on the right rather than yelling at the other side.  Now, of course they're going to fix things from their perspective, but so far the Occupy movement (which I consider the mirror to the tea party) hasn't been attempting the same thing.

Private schools are another example of how government solutions don't work.  Even though everyone is forced to pay for public schooling (depending on what system is used to fix it; where I live, it's everyone with a house) they can give their children a decent education by paying for private schooling.

It's fascinating how the people who claim with the new health care act that having more people thrown into the system should lower prices don't make the same claim for private schools.

Now here's the part where I go completely insane and give some examples of how things could be done without government: 

power grid, interstate highways and a lot of things we take for granted without it.

I don't have issue with either of the things listed, but let's see.

Power Grid: Without having the government do it, we'd end up with private sector power, actually allowing people to choose whether or not they want to go green.

Interstate Highways: Privately run toll roads.  Arguments can be made against having to pay for the use of roads, but where I'm from, you have to pay for the turnpike anyway.

I'm probably just starting to repeat myself on things, though.

Mmm, doesn't wash for me. Making sure I understand your hypothesis correctly, it seems that it can be boiled down (I'm simplifying; I know this) to big government = financial strain e.g. recession and depression, and small government = prosperity.

Your examples are comparing and contrasting the 20s vs. the Great Depression in the 30s, and using the 50s as a supporting example of prosperity.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both periods of prosperity followed two very major wars. Could be that we would have had prosperity in both places no matter what economic policy at the time was. I'm not sure I believe that. Wars cost money and drain coffers; if war provided economic booms, the US would have been in a huge economic upthrust in the early 90s when Desert Storm concluded, and there would have been a massive surge of the economy all through the past ten years due to fighting two... three (I think? Are we up to four?) major wars. The 90s weren't so bad but the past 10 years prove, I think, that war does not cause booms. I don't know that it's necessarily even correlated with booms at this point.

What I also find extremely interesting, though, is that the two examples of prosperity were times when the government had a great deal of control over the populace: Prohibition and the Red Scare. The propaganda machine was very strong during both decades in US history, so I would personally be wary of declaring either decade a rousing economic success without double-checking the numbers to back me up. They could confirm it. I don't know. But just as lemmings now have the reputation for walking off cliffs due to PR, it could be that the roaring 20s and the grand ol' 50s weren't all they're cracked up to be, financially.

Those are just a couple of the questions I have that make me extremely skeptical of your hypothesis, and I'm curious to know if you have any theories or data.

As far as wars, I've heard as well that wars help cause a boom in the economy, and agree with you that it doesn't seem likely, for the reasons that you've given.  If anything, you're lowering the workforce and spending lots of money towards something which isn't productive.  They often say that World War 2 got us out of the Great Depression, but it doesn't seem to hold up.

It seems more likely that the 20s and 50s should have been extremely drained periods after the wars, but from everything I've heard, they weren't.  Sadly, though, I don't have any evidence on this and it could very well be propaganda.  I'll look more into it when I get back.

This is the essence of my beef as well.  Everyone that I have heard call for small government (present company excluded)   are not the least bit interested in smaller government.  They just want to do away with particular programs or regulations their lobbies do not want.  The same people want to increase military spending, grow the border patrol, amend the constitution to prevent consenting adults from marrying, elevate Christianity to a special status, ect.

Ron Paul is an exception, but neither party takes him seriously.  I applaud him for standing up to the two parties, but I am not sure I agree with him.

I like Ron Paul for a lot of things but foreign policy.  I'm not fully sold on the Isolationist thing.

It's a funny thing with Isolationist.  The usual Libertarian deal is that you stay completely removed from the world, but Ayn Rand, usually strongly claimed to be Libertarian, actually strongly pushed for removing tyrants.  Then again, it may simply be that she was too emotionally involved.

Callie brought up some great bits about how, as was best said in the Max Payne 3 game (one of the few things they did right in a disappointing sequel), "A throne never stays empty for long."  America had one of the few properly done revolutions, and I honestly believe that part of it was an attempt to minimalize government power.

Sorry for the short post but I have to go.  If I missed something that people want me to comment on, point it out.

[Oniya]

Um, beg pardon, but my experience with the Tea Party doesn't exactly fit with your description of 'not yelling at the other side'. 

As for the government-regulated infrastructure - While I admit that the government could do a lot more in maintaining it, privatization has been shown to not work very well.  Remember Enron and the 'rolling blackouts' across California?  Yup.  As for the Interstate system (introduced by Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) ), we already do pay for those roads.  It's part of what our taxes are supposed to pay for maintaining.  Can't say that they've done a great job of following through on that, but it's primarily funded through the fuel taxes.

[AndyZ]

Um, beg pardon, but my experience with the Tea Party doesn't exactly fit with your description of 'not yelling at the other side'. 

Oops.  Yeah, good catch.  That should be "not just yelling at the other side."

There's way too many folks out there who only hate when one side does something.  I've met people who hated GWB for his spending $5 trillion in 8 years but don't mind Obama spending more in less time, and I'm sure many of you have seen equal hypocrisy on the other side.

As for the government-regulated infrastructure - While I admit that the government could do a lot more in maintaining it, privatization has been shown to not work very well.  Remember Enron and the 'rolling blackouts' across California? 

Honestly, no.  I was in college around that time and not really paying attention.  I'll do a quick search on it all, but feel free to correct me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

Yeah, I'm going to be honest that I don't fully understand all this at a glance, but I notice this passage:

The major flaw of the deregulation scheme was that it was an incomplete deregulation—that is, "middleman" utility distributors continued to be regulated and forced to charge fixed prices, and continued to have limited choice in terms of electricity providers. Other, less catastrophic energy deregulation schemes, such as Pennsylvania's, have generally deregulated utilities but kept the providers regulated, or deregulated both.

It seems like they only partially deregulated things so that free market principles couldn't get rid of issues, so Enron was able to set up a monopoly and hike up prices in order to make more money (like monopolies often do.)

By keeping the consumer price of electricity artificially low, the California government discouraged citizens from practicing conservation. In February 2001, California governor Gray Davis stated, "Believe me, if I wanted to raise rates I could have solved this problem in 20 minutes."[15]

See, here's another problem.  The government can't just set the price of an item.  If it's too low, either no one will produce it or the government will have to make it at a loss.  If it's too high, no one will buy it.  Government is phenomenally bad at finding the sweet spot, especially since government changes have to cover a wide swath and prices are never the same from place to place, and they're much slower than the fluctuation that free market uses with sales.

The producers used moments of spike energy production to inflate the price of energy.[14] In January 2001, energy producers began shutting down plants to increase prices.[14]

These sentences make absolutely no sense.  How could shutting down a plant in order to increase prices possibly be a sound economic decision?  In what way could removing your ability to provide as much of something as possible allow you to make more money?

Let's use some examples here.  Toys have had some crazy sky prices, so let's make up a Captain Obvious toy that's selling like wildfire this holiday season.  In fact, toys are selling so well that they can make 2 million of them and sell them all for $30.  However, the executives decide instead to only make half a million.  Assuming the toys cost $5 to make, they're making $25 per toy, and would need to sell the toys for $105 in order to make as much as they could have.  If people are willing to pay so much for the toys, though, then the price isn't truly $30, and it makes more sense just to raise the price and make as many as they can in order to make as much money as possible.

Now, if they sell the toys for ridiculous amounts, another company is going to make Captain Duh toys, and instead of $105, they'll set the price at just $30.  Captain Obvious productions will then either keep the ridiculously high prices or lower their prices as well in order to be competitive.

So what am I missing?


I do remember something about how Enron had this big accounting fraud thing and ended up going bankrupt.  Rest assured that I don't want to legalize accounting fraud.

Yup.  As for the Interstate system (introduced by Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) ),

Let me state again that having an R or D after your name doesn't make you for big or small government.  Republicans are more likely to talk about shrinking things, but there's no way GWB could be considered a small government guy.  There's small government Democrats out there as well, like Ann Kirkpatrick.  Probably not the best example but the first one that pops to mind.

we already do pay for those roads.  It's part of what our taxes are supposed to pay for maintaining.  Can't say that they've done a great job of following through on that, but it's primarily funded through the fuel taxes.

See, part of what economics has shown is how a monopoly doesn't really work.  I can go into detail on that if necessary.  However, a government by definition has a monopoly, because except in rare cases like the school system, you can't compete with the government.

Remember when Microsoft got sued for having a monopoly because they bundled in their Office programs and other stuff, effectively making it all free because the consumer has no choice but to get the bundled programs?  Compare that to public schools.  If you don't like a private school, you take your kids out of it and move to another school.  If you don't like the public school system, you have to either move or save up enough money for a private school on top of paying the taxes on the public school.

[Callie Del Noire]

I recall a bit about the blackouts/brownouts of the California power crisis. We had folks who couldn't afford to live in San Diego when the power spiked, we had a DOZEN or more cheifs and senior petty officers who had to move back into base housing. One Chief nearly lost his house and it was literally years before he could afford to live in the house he bought. In San Diego there were like.. at least a pair of dairies that went out of business do to the cost of juice and the damage the brownouts did to the refrigeration units. As a result milk prices spiked as well. We lost two legacy systems to brownouts, that cost the squadron something like 10 grand in hard drives that had to be sequentially serialized 10 meg hard drives.. Antiques.. but they were definitely a seller's market item.

Word was that the 'consultants' that helped shape the California Power deregulation that led to it.. designed the bills/laws to do EXACTLY what occurred. Enron paid folks to engineer a power crisis. I think at least five people died from heat related issues that could have been avoided if they had A/C  and/or power in the eastern side of San Diego.. nothing outright put on the power companies.. but clearly the power issues didn't help.

It got so bad with the brown outs, power issues.. I used to unplug everything before I left my barracks to go to work. You know tis' bad when a 25+ year old nuclear reactor waiting to be sailed back to Norfolk for refueling was the most stable power source in southern california.

Ultilities, roads and other 'public interest' items are MUCH better regulated/controlled by the government than private industry. Anyone that tells you otherwise is either not thinking it through or is lying through their teeth.

You know why Standard Oil was such a MASSIVE fuel company back in the day? John D. Rockefeller controlled transportation. Anyone that didn't follow his orders found it very hard to transport their oil anywhere.

Consider this when you say it's better for private industry to run a public asset and/or utility. They, corporations, exist to make a profit. With no competition or alternative and no regulations.. there are CENTURIES of precedent that they will gouge what the market can bear.

Toll roads are a good example.. the ones I rode on in New England weren't much better than the public highways, and it was damn near impossible to avoid one going through the area. (Try driving from Brunswick to Providence for a consult without crossing one. I lost 40 bucks coming and going that my travel claim wouldn't cover). The Toll bridge in San Diego has MORE than enough income to cover their costs.. yet every year they up the toll and refuse to reimburse either city and actively does whatever they can to curtail anything that might interfere with their access being the quickest.

And FYI.. part of the reason Microsoft was being sued wasn't JUST due to their bundling of IE into windows.. It was their threats to vendors over putting OS installs into computers OTHER than windows, their actions to quash competition in software markets, and actions like actively obstructing the functionality of rival companies like Sun Micro-systems. (Remember all the early java issues windows had?)

As for your assertion about the economy in the 50s and 20s.. it's not as cut and dried as you think. The South never really recovered economically from the civil war, they were looted, pillaged and such. Parts of Southern culture and food came out of the scarcity of things, like French Cusine. It was poor folk cracking up everything they could to keep from starving. Do you honestly think anyone would eat things like the bone jelly out of cow hooves or fat back if it wasn't to make sure you ate EVERYTHING out of the animal.. including the squeak.

Add in that the country in both post-World Wars had an advantage we no longer have.

They were productive manufacturing Americas.. we aren't a manufacturing culture anymore. We let the suits take the lazy way out, and get kick backs from the government for doing it.

Did you know the Chinese manufacture a good chunk of our miltary uniforms? Or that is no longer a domestically produced light bulb or widely sold nail? (Farriers making their own don't count)

[AndyZ]

Callie, I feel like we're just going to end up repeating our points to each other.

You mentioned being a Reagan conservative, so I'm going to recommend picking up one of Art Laffer's books and reading through it.  You should be able to find one in a library if you don't want to buy it, and it might do a good job of explaining things from a Reaganite perspective.

[Callie Del Noire]

Callie, I feel like we're just going to end up repeating our points to each other.

You mentioned being a Reagan conservative, so I'm going to recommend picking up one of Art Laffer's books and reading through it.  You should be able to find one in a library if you don't want to buy it, and it might do a good job of explaining things from a Reaganite perspective.

Let me sum it up like this..

Is it in the public interest to let an organization administer/regulate a public resource such as roads, highways, power utilities, the telecommunication superstructure when their main charge is the public general good, or allow companies with no such directive to self-regulate? Keeping in mind that everytime we've let industry self-regulate it's bitten the public interest in the ass?

Standard Oil wasn't the only monopoly that hurt the public interest.

And that would be the Art Laffer who is one of the primary supporters for privatizing social security and is a primary reference of fiscal policy by such august persons as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumbsfeld? If I recall he's a HUGE Keysean econcomist who sees small government and minimal regulation as a good thing.

And I said I supported Reagan's outlook as a 'right sizer' rather than downsizer.. I claimed to be more of a Goldwater republican than Reagan.

Don't get me wrong, his outlook is more balance than most supply side economists and I do like that with his flat rate the wealthy would pay more, particularly since the investment gains would be tacked at the suggested rate (which is higher than the current 12%).  Just his other actions beyond his writing confuse me a bit

[Serephino]

I think what Callie and I are basically saying is that what we need is a happy balance.  He is a moderate conservative, and I'm a moderate liberal, and I seem to agree with him quite a bit.  Moderation is key. 

It may not make sense from a purely logical point of view for a company to screw it's customers, especially when they have competition, but they do.  The big banks did some really underhanded, slimy things that their customers never had a clue about until the economic crash, all in the name of maximizing profits.  President Obama got a law passed to reign in credit cards that were doing things like mailing out statements so late peoples' only options were pay by phone and get slapped with a 'convenience' fee, or mail in the payment late.  They could also raise your interest rate because they felt like it.  You keep saying that the free market will produce a competitor that won't do that so they get all the customers.  Problem is, they were all doing it, because it worked so well to make them rich.  The famous Wallstreet Bailout; the banks used it to give bonuses to the geniuses that caused the crash, then turned around and asked for more, and the government had to give it to them because they were 'too big to fail'.  They'd take the economy with them.  There was competition, and yet, they all used the same underhanded practices. 

Let's use an example.  Chemical G is discovered.  It's a zero calorie artificial sweetener that's extremely cheap to produce, cheaper than anything currently in existence.  The studies on whether or not it's safe to consume are mixed, but, hey, 500 people were used in the study, and only 60 of them got sick, and it really can't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chemical G was the cause anyway.  Without the FDA to say it can't be used until there's more proof it's safe, why wouldn't every food company out there use it?  The first company to switch to chemical G will be able to lower their prices and still up their profits.  If the other  food companies want to stay competitive they'll have to switch to Chemical G, or take a serious hit to their profits.  What company wants to lose money?

Then say five years later some scientist discovers that Chemical G is toxic.  It isn't rat poison, and you have to consume it for a long period of time for it to do harm, but serious harm is done.  The people who get sick aren't going to know is was Chemical G that made them sick.  It's the FDA that makes companies put the ingredients on the label, and even then, most people don't bother to read it.  It's on the shelf, and why would any company sell something that isn't safe?  Without the FDA making them disclose it, the people getting sick won't even know what Chemical G is. 

The companies are watching the money roll in, so why won't they silence the scientists that believe Chemical G may be harmful.  With enough money they can hire other scientists to prove it isn't true.  If only 12-15% of people are getting sick and dying, that's a relatively small percentage, and aren't a few thousand lives worth a billion dollars?

If you want a real life example; high fructose corn syrup.  I've heard both bad and good things about it.  Companies still use it; it's practically in everything.  People still consume it for the most part.  Like I said, most people pay little to no attention to what is in their food and drink.  Instead of devoting resources to look into the issue further, companies are trying to make the people who say it's bad look like crackpot alarmists. 

It's been proven how toxic cigarettes are, yet people still smoke, and tobacco companies aren't doing anything to make their product less poisonous.  They know that for every customer that dies two more will take their place.  Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying tobacco should be banned or anything.  It's just proof that big business isn't all that inclined to do what's in the general public's best interest.  They do what's in the best interest of their wallets.  Watch 'Thank you for Smoking' sometime.       

[AndyZ]

And I said I supported Reagan's outlook as a 'right sizer' rather than downsizer.. I claimed to be more of a Goldwater republican than Reagan.

This is probably where I was confused, then.  Admittedly I don't know too much about Goldwater, but so much of what you've said was blatantly against Reagan that I got confused.

I feel like I'm just repeating myself a lot.  I'll try to keep posting but I don't want to get to the point of the same thing over and over.  However, I do want to thank everyone for being kind and respectful; it's quite a pleasure compared to many of the other threads in this section.

Serephino, I notice there's a bit of a circular argument here.  With Chemical G, you mention that we need the FDA to approve things because people will automatically assume that it's safe because we have an FDA to approve things.  Now, I won't argue the idiocy of the average person, but I do feel like this is a problem in society.  People expect everything to be safe and labelled, to the point where coffee mugs warn that coffee may be hot

Next up, we have the issue of lethal products and what happens.  There's an old story that got told in my Business Ethics class which you might have already seen on Fight Club, where they weighed the cost of doing a recall against not doing one, and decided it was cheaper not to do one.  When this came out in court, they got their pants sued off by the people who died.

Without the FDA deciding what is and isn't safe, you can use public opinion and courtrooms to get juries to decide.  High Fructose Corn Syrup is acceptable because the FDA says it is, so everyone uses it because it's acceptable.

Now, part of the reason that all of the companies do things is because there's only a few competitors.  I've already explained how monopolies are bad, and how the best way to counteract them is to have a low barrier of entry.

So I did a search on how to start a business in America and got an eHow page:

Instructions
1
Contact the Chamber of Commerce of the city you are going to stat your business at to know the local, county and state requiremtns.

2
Visit Internal Revenu Service at www.isrs.gov, to be aware of kind of taxes you need to pay and collect from your employees.

3
Check out Immigration and Naturalization Service at www.ins.us.doj.gov, to know what kind of information and forms you must use with your employees.

4
Contact U.S. Dept of Labor at www.dol.gov, they will give you information about minimum wages, child labor, training, tipped employees, substance abuse, hiring and firing.

5
Speak to Occupational Safety and Health, to see what you need to do to meet their requirements.

6
To get more information on how to obatain patents, trademards or copyrights go to Patents, Trademarks and Compyrights at uspto.gov

Now, you'll note that it doesn't help you at all with actually getting a business started.  Do a search on hooking up a TV, or composing music, or any number of other things, and it'll actually point you in the direction.  This is just full of all the things that the little guy has to do in order to try to get things going.

There's a saying that if Bill Gates wanted to start up Microsoft today, he wouldn't be able to thanks to all the rules and regulations.  I don't know who said it and where, though I'd love to know.  That means that for all the innovations that came about as a result of Microsoft or businesses influenced by Microsoft, we'd have a big technological hole.

Here's a listing of the IFC ranking all the countries on the ease of doing business: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

America is number 13 for starting a business.  Lucky 13, although it has us tied with Ireland so we're both 13 and 14.  Dealing with construction permits is 17, and it keeps going from there.

Now, your mileage may vary, but I always figured that part of the American Dream is that you can go off and do your own thing, start up your own stuff and not have to sign up for one of the corporations which already exist.  If I was big on conspiracy theories, I'd suggest that they use their political influence to deliberately make it harder for other companies to do business so that they could continue to be unscrupulous and know that they could get away with whatever they wanted.

If there was a way to have some trustworthy government influence over our lives which wasn't corrupt, I'd be interested.  Honestly, though, I don't think it exists.

How about we suggest this as a possible compromise: perhaps the best way to handle things would be to allow smaller companies to do all this stuff without having to deal with all the red tape, and create a sliding scale where the more money that the company brings in, the more of these rules and regulations they'd have to follow?  Or would you want corner delis and the like to still have to deal with all of these things?

[Oniya]

Just as a note, I would point out that eHow is probably a step below a Wiki as far as self-correction goes.  Anyone can write a page, and there is no way of submitting corrections to another page owner, except through the comments.

[Callie Del Noire]

It's true.  The comment about Microsoft.  If someone today tried half the business practices that Bill Gates and company did on the way up, they'd be sued out of existence. Why? Gates stole, bought, copied so many intellectual properties before the current IP protection structure was set in place.  Windows was all but cloned from an early version of the Mac OS remember?

As for the 'if there was no FDA, it would be settled in the courts' statement, sorry AndyZ...that wont float. Before the foundation  of it by the Whiley Act, the producers didn't have to even be truthful about what was in the product or commit to standards of quality.

As for my statements on Reagan, let's see.. He expanded the scope of government several times and raise capital gains, estate and upper income taxes at least eight times in his first term. He could have privatized the air craft controllers when they went on strike.  He didn't.  Government jobs actually grew by 3% or more during his time in office. (President Obama's admin has shrunk them by 2.7% and for a fun note Bush II grew gov jobs by about 750,000 public sector jobs)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/government-jobs-bouyed-bushs-economy-and-sunk-obamas-chart.php

[AndyZ]

Just as a note, I would point out that eHow is probably a step below a Wiki as far as self-correction goes.  Anyone can write a page, and there is no way of submitting corrections to another page owner, except through the comments.

Fair point.

It's true.  The comment about Microsoft.  If someone today tried half the business practices that Bill Gates and company did on the way up, they'd be sued out of existence. Why? Gates stole, bought, copied so many intellectual properties before the current IP protection structure was set in place.  Windows was all but cloned from an early version of the Mac OS remember?

As for the 'if there was no FDA, it would be settled in the courts' statement, sorry AndyZ...that wont float. Before the foundation  of it by the Whiley Act, the producers didn't have to even be truthful about what was in the product or commit to standards of quality.

As for my statements on Reagan, let's see.. He expanded the scope of government several times and raise capital gains, estate and upper income taxes at least eight times in his first term. He could have privatized the air craft controllers when they went on strike.  He didn't.  Government jobs actually grew by 3% or more during his time in office. (President Obama's admin has shrunk them by 2.7% and for a fun note Bush II grew gov jobs by about 750,000 public sector jobs)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/government-jobs-bouyed-bushs-economy-and-sunk-obamas-chart.php

Yeah, your perspective actually feels a lot more concrete now.  What are Goldwater's views, anyway?


Incidentally, I wanted to give another real life example of things: http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-progressive-insurance-to-defend-her

http://www.wikinvest.com/wikinvest/api.php?action=viewNews&aid=4212492&page=Stock%3AProgressive_Corporation_%28PGR%29&comments=0&format=html

Short version: this guy's sister was killed in an automobile accident.  She had Progressive insurance.  The other driver had some other insurance.  When court hearings were held to determine if the guy who killed the sister was negligent in his driving, Progressive sent over a lawyer to defend the man who killed her, so that they wouldn't have to pay on the insurance.  If they could prove that the sister was at fault for her own death, Progressive doesn't have to pay out.

Now, is this terrible?  Absolutely.  Now that you know this story, though, would you ever even think of buying Progressive insurance?  I know I wouldn't.  This story has already gone viral to the point where Progressive paid out in order to make the story go away.

Now, some would want a law that would keep an insurance company from doing something like that.  The way I see it, if a company would even want to do something like that, I want them to try it and prove to everyone what disgusting wretches they are.  Let them see how what happens.

It's just not profitable to be unethical unless you have a monopoly.  Companies that try to pull this crap don't last very long, because word gets out.

Now, I am for labels on stuff, but I think I already said that.  If something's untested but people want to try it, why not let them?  Then again, if something doesn't have a label, how many people would willingly drink it?  How about just that I'm against fraudulent labels?  I'll agree that producers should have to be truthful about what was in the product, but if they have you in the court under oath, or they subpoena you, don't you have to be truthful anyway?

Let me put things this way: what rule or regulation would you want to put down for the Progressive example?

[Callie Del Noire]

I would say there is no need. The policy between the deceased and Progressive is a contract, paid for and set in stone. Progressive is in breech of contract and only the fact that they have a HUGE amount of legal muscle kept them from paying. Irony being.. I'm willing to bet that it cost more to litigate, protect the other guy and now pay to spin the bad press than settling the policy would have cost them. The policy would have had a set amount..

I'd say AT most a reinforcement of current laws concerning legal contacts would be needed. Of course given the use of legal community by big business I dont' see that happening anytime soon. Contracts are being dismissed, rebutted and stalled in courts because it's easier to pay for a legal team till the aggrieved runs out of money.

[AndyZ]

We are in absolute agreement that the legal process is a complete shambles.  The only solution that I've heard for the "stalling in court" tactic would be the loser pays idea, though, where whoever loses a suit has to pay the costs on both sides.  Have there been any other methods suggested that you've heard of?

[Oniya]

We are in absolute agreement that the legal process is a complete shambles.  The only solution that I've heard for the "stalling in court" tactic would be the loser pays idea, though, where whoever loses a suit has to pay the costs on both sides.  Have there been any other methods suggested that you've heard of?

Actually, the loser usually has to pay court costs on both sides (I've watched quite a few sentencing hearings).  The trick is that the big corps (or the ultra-rich) try to delay long enough so that the little guy gives up before a ruling.  Hence, the big guy hasn't been found guilty/liable, and therefore hasn't been saddled with anything.

[AndyZ]

So we need to figure out a good solution for this.  Any suggestions?

[Callie Del Noire]

So we need to figure out a good solution for this.  Any suggestions?

Never happen. The parties involved are too invested in the current system. Right now it's even getting to the point where enforced arbitration is being put into force. IE.. you sign the wrong EULA.. you can't even go to court to sue them. You have to hope the arbitrator isn't completely bought off by the big money client.. or that even then that the company won't weasel out of their payments if they lose.

Too many loop holes at the moment in courts and in arbitration. You would need MASSIVE reform in legal procedural laws, the court system appeals process and arbitration law.

[AndyZ]

Quite possibly.  One of the things that I love about discussion, though, is that we can hypothesize on things which may not seem feasible at the present.

I'm well aware of how many lawyers work in government, and why it's messed up so badly.  I also realize that any new lawyers who come in would want to be rich and aren't very inclined to fix things.

However, that shouldn't dissuade an intelligent person from stepping in here and offering possibilities on how it can be done.

It occurred to me after I posted that even the loser pays thing wouldn't fix it because both sides would still be getting constantly paid by the hour.  I think the loser pays idea was supposed to be for frivolous lawsuits.  I also remember hearing the words Tort Reform from my Intro to Law class several years ago, but I can't remember what for.

A quick and dirty fix would be to change the payment plan of lawyers so that they're paid by the case instead of by the amount of work.  This would encourage quick solutions, settlements, and rapid court sessions because they're not getting overtime.  However, I'm not honestly sure this would solve more problems than it would cause.  Would lawyers then rush through everything without really doing research or caring?  I'd figure they'd still have to do the work if they wanted to keep their reputation.

This idea probably wouldn't affect corporate lawyers anyway, which are most likely paid a salary (I think) and are on the clock no matter what.

This is probably too off topic from the original thread, though, so Callie is free to call me back to the original discussion if he wants to.

[Callie Del Noire]

Quite possibly.  One of the things that I love about discussion, though, is that we can hypothesize on things which may not seem feasible at the present.

I'm well aware of how many lawyers work in government, and why it's messed up so badly.  I also realize that any new lawyers who come in would want to be rich and aren't very inclined to fix things.

However, that shouldn't dissuade an intelligent person from stepping in here and offering possibilities on how it can be done.

It occurred to me after I posted that even the loser pays thing wouldn't fix it because both sides would still be getting constantly paid by the hour.  I think the loser pays idea was supposed to be for frivolous lawsuits.  I also remember hearing the words Tort Reform from my Intro to Law class several years ago, but I can't remember what for.

A quick and dirty fix would be to change the payment plan of lawyers so that they're paid by the case instead of by the amount of work.  This would encourage quick solutions, settlements, and rapid court sessions because they're not getting overtime.  However, I'm not honestly sure this would solve more problems than it would cause.  Would lawyers then rush through everything without really doing research or caring?  I'd figure they'd still have to do the work if they wanted to keep their reputation.

This idea probably wouldn't affect corporate lawyers anyway, which are most likely paid a salary (I think) and are on the clock no matter what.

This is probably too off topic from the original thread, though, so Callie is free to call me back to the original discussion if he wants to.

A little, but not too much. I would say that the 'Small government' argument could be countered by the fact that Tort Reform like what is needed in court cases like this has been steadily and constantly ignored. We got a MASSIVE court system and if we could reform some laws and change some procedures and actions you have to wonder how much money we'd save in government.

One of my favorite shows, The Closer.. just finished up and it's 'sequel' Major Crimes started up. The goal of the team is to get plea bargains done now rather than confessions, the argument is that each plea bargain saved the city MILLIONS in court costs and that each plea bargain excludes the chance of appeal.

A two year court case costs millions, what would a decade long drug out law suit cost the federal courts? Particularly when one side is pushing for delays, appeals, refilling, change of venue?

I find it astonishing that in the constant mill of 'reduce government' we don't see more calls to reduce court issues. Of course when you got Patent Trolls, RIAA, the MPAA and other massive corporate groups using the court system as their personal cudjget it shouldn't be a surprise that this area of 'downsizing' has been missed.

[AndyZ]

Remind me when I wake up to put up a thread about fixing the legal system.

[Callie Del Noire]

Remind me when I wake up to put up a thread about fixing the legal system.

Don't.. you'll just get frustrated..there is a LOT of ground there. TRULY. I'm talking Epic Colossal amounts.

[AndyZ]

Appreciated, and not sure if I will yet, but I hope you don't consider it as ignoring you if I end up doing so.

So, next topic to discuss: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/valley-woman-told-she-could-not-hand-out-free-bottled-water-in-summer-heat

Some lady was handing out free bottled water in the 112 degree heat of Phoenix, Arizona, and was told that she was violating city code because she didn't have a permit.

Should you have to have a permit in order to give someone a free bottled water?

[Oniya]

I'd think this would fall under Good Samaritan laws instead of permit laws.  We didn't have 112 degree heat here in PA this summer, but there was one time that Mr. Oniya saw a total stranger in heat-distress outside our house and did the exact same thing.  (He also asked and got permission to give her kid a freezy-pop).  When he was working the RenFaire, he'd get a case of water from the bulk store, and do the same thing.  Not advertising it, not selling it - just recognizing that Person A looked like they were in trouble and handing it over.

[js207]

Most people, whatever their political position, agree that the courts have a legitimate rôle to play in enforcing contracts between consenting parties - which covers both the dishonest labelling someone mentioned earlier (when I buy a bottle of stuff labelled as containing certain amounts of certain chemicals, it's a breach of contract if it doesn't) and the insurance company trying to weasel out of paying. Whiley Act or not, false labelling is illegal and could be remedied in court. (In some recent cases, the government has actually acted to limit truth in labelling, to suit its own ends!)

The thing is, though, enforcing a contract doesn't require significant - or indeed any - government resources: the two parties, or the losing party, can be required to pay the court costs. No need for some regulatory bureaucracy  with its own armed goons: just a courtroom, judge and clerk, funded by case filing fees.

There IS some need for regulation - for example, radio transmissions and cellphone networks: someone needs to ensure company A doesn't interfere with company X's frequencies and vice versa - but nothing requiring massive resources. Spending is higher than ever before: any agency claiming not to have "enough" resources for their core function now is either lying or criminally inefficient (or both!)

[AndyZ]

I'll start this off saying that I really hope this is fake.  If anyone can get me evidence that it's untrue, please please let me know.  However, I've found it on quite a few sites.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120809/NEWS05/308090260/Detroit-water-department-cut-81-workers-under-new-proposal

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/17404

My claim: since the Detroit water department does not have any horses, they do not need a horseshoer.  I mean, I'm sure there's other things you can cut, but...yeah.

[Chelemar]

Andy,

If you read the article it explains the position as being that of a current welder, former horseshoer (dyecaster, metal smith, smithy, blacksmith.)   XD
Edited to add:

Ooops my apologies, didn't see the 2nd article.  Thought it was all one.  Looks like they are worried about quantity not quality.

[AndyZ]

No worries ^_^

Some of the articles mention the explanation of what the guy actually does, which may be genuine in order to say that they need and have an actual welder.  That may be true and they just never bothered to actually put in that he's not a horseshoer, but it seems more likely that they ambushed some guy with questions and he talked about some of the things which the guy does which help out around the place.  However, that's speculation on my part.

[Callie Del Noire]

Sounds like the horseshoer position turned into a general welder and metalsmith position.  As for the rest, I would DEFINITELY investigate a second opinion, a 80% reduction in labor sounds wild particularly when you see the words 'outsourced' put in.

For example, when I did ground maintenance or a training squadron we were told our billets would go away to civilian jobs to help downsizing and consolidation. Till we read the proposal.  Typically fr my rate it takes 4 of us to maintain ONE aircraft of our type and another 4 of another rate.  The civilian proposal had only 2 techs for each plane BUT only a tenth of the flight hours available and each tech was getting six times the base pay and would have overtime pay as well (military does gt over time)

[js207]

It is important to compare oranges to oranges, certainly - so rather than focussing on the one obsolete job title, ask why Detroit has double the staffing ratio of the Chicago counterpart doing the same job.

The much lower staffing level on that civilian maintenance contractor could well be alarming. On the other hand, in 2008 I was involved in a government contract where we had one team member analysing data in a spreadsheet - by hand. Literally, counting the rows. I replaced her with a small Perl script. How many person-hours were wasted, on that small project alone, by a simple lack of thought about efficient ways of working?

[Oniya]

Just caught this little gem, courtesy of Robert Reich.  You've probably heard all about how Paul Ryan plans to make all these sweeping cuts in government spending.  Cut this, reduce that, retool this other thing...  Projections from the Ryan camp look pretty good.

Well, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan group, ran the numbers.  Folks, it doesn't look pretty.

You see, Ryan's budget also includes some massive tax cuts (particularly in the upper echelons), which then allows the deficit to actually increase - and rather substantially, too.  Yes, he's chopping all these things that the government spends money on (pesky things like CHIP, Medicare, and Social Security), but he's also chopping away at what the government takes in.

[AndyZ]

Paul Ryan responded to this on his website: http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=175628

No clue who's telling the truth, but anyone looking into this may want to compare and contrast.

[Callie Del Noire]

Paul Ryan responded to this on his website: http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=175628

No clue who's telling the truth, but anyone looking into this may want to compare and contrast.

Still reading things through, but.. the vibe I get is they are saying 'not true' but not providing a lot of actual figures to refute the claims. I see a lot of cites towards research basis but not any concrete info to back the refutations. Not a single figure or percentage. Just a restatement of prior cliams and how they came to their plan.

[Trieste]

I'm not comparing or contrasting, but Mr. Ryan's version brings up several questions just reading through it.

Claim: CBO was directed not to score revenues for the Roadmap by staff.  (pg. 2)

Reality:  False. In fact, Congressman Ryan and his staff did ask CBO to analyze both the revenue and spending provisions in the Roadmap.  However, CBO declined to do a revenue analysis of the tax plan, citing that it did not want to infringe on the jurisdiction of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).  The JCT is responsible for providing the official revenue score of legislation before Congress.  JCT, however, does not have the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years) that Ryan’s long-term solution requires.

Given these functional constraints for an official JCT cost estimate, Ryan relied on its original work with U.S. Treasury Department tax experts to formulate a reasonable expected path for long-term revenues given the tax policies in the Roadmap combined with long-term expectations for economic growth.

Wait, so we won't see results from this plan until more than 10 years in the future? Why not have JCT do the first 10 years of analysis and then have the US Treasury Department tax experts pick up after that? This seems shady to me.

Also, I don't see on page 2 of the report anywhere stating that Ryan's staff instructed the CBO in such a manner. Straw man?

So in my experience with bureaucracy, when one committee says it does not want to infringe on another committee's turf, it's usually because they're being asked to stick their neck out and they're not comfortable with, or equipped to, provide a very good answer. So CBO redirecting them to JCT was probably due to the fact that JCT was better-equipped to handle the numbers. Good on them for not overreaching, as far as I'm concerned.

Claim: The Roadmap imposes no requirement that private insurers actually offer health coverage to Medicare beneficiaries at an affordable price. (pg. 10)

Reality:  Title III, Sec 301 of the Roadmap requires the Department of Health and Human Services to certify plans and publish an annual list of Medicare-approved plans, at least one of which must be targeted to the “special needs of Medicare’s highest cost seniors.”

Erm, that's not a requirement of private insurers - that's a requirement of the DHHS to publish a report. If there's nothing to report, what happens?



There are several statements that bring up similar questions. I don't really trust a fiscal plan that tries to outline spending and taxes for the next 60 or 80 years, for the same reason that it's hard to plan a household budget for the next, I dunno, 5 years. Lots can happen... I don't trust this roadmap thingie, I really don't.

[MasterMischief]

Again, this is why 'smaller government' sounds like code speak to me.

Thieves Cant?   ;D

[Dovel]

lol I won't get you started because I'll admit I don't know enough about the intelligence community to discuss it intelligently myself. All I can say about it is that, from the little I've seen in the news and read about it etc. it seems that the various agencies don't communicate well.

I believe the government should be turned in an amusement park. A nonpartisan amusement park. With puppets.

[Oniya]

[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPd98CbbMk[/noembed]  *whistles innocently*



Anyways, I have a hard time swallowing any plan that involves a multi-decade-long timetable as 'a sure fix'.  Among many other things (the mathematically complex system that is the world economy first and foremost), it also depends on the next 4+ Presidents and 19+ Congresses sticking to 'The Plan', and that's only assuming two decades.

[Callie Del Noire]

[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPd98CbbMk[/noembed]  *whistles innocently*



Anyways, I have a hard time swallowing any plan that involves a multi-decade-long timetable as 'a sure fix'.  Among many other things (the mathematically complex system that is the world economy first and foremost), it also depends on the next 4+ Presidents and 19+ Congresses sticking to 'The Plan', and that's only assuming two decades.

Considering that it took the work of three presidents over a span of twenty years to create the surplus that bush flushed away I don't see it working. Particularly since it was three presidents who accepted higher taxes were part of the fix. 

[js207]

Yes, he's chopping ... things like CHIP, Medicare...

To complain about Ryan keeping Obama's Medicare cuts in place is a bit of a stretch, surely!

Considering that it took the work of three presidents over a span of twenty years to create the surplus

What 'surplus'? During the height of the dot-com bubble, the debt "only" went up by $20 billion (1999-2000). At that point, before the bubble burst, some economists predicted that there would be an actual surplus in the future - but the bubble burst, so that was never a possibility. Of course with the bubble bursting and 9/11 the debt became much worse, but short of unprecedented slashing of federal spending - at the start of a war, too - that was literally inevitable.

[Oniya]

To complain about Ryan keeping Obama's Medicare cuts in place is a bit of a stretch, surely!

Except Obama is replacing it with something else.  Something that the Republicans actually thought up, but completely tried to stonewall during this Presidency.  There are at least three sections in the article I linked that are devoted specifically to how the Ryan plan affects healthcare specifically.