Government Regulations

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/politics/regulation/6268-good-government-regulations.html

"Good" Government Regulations?
15 February 2011 Michael Hurd

We need objective laws to protect rights and not regulations to tell us how to live.

Obama says that the government can eliminate "burdensome" rules, but America's businesses must recognize the "good" that regulations do.

What is the standard of "good" here? Good to whom, and why? If regulations are good for businesses and customers, then why must government mandate them? Businesses, on the premise of self-interest, regulate themselves. They do so for their own sake and the sake of their customers, whom they must keep happy. And if regulations are only good from a government or political point-of-view, then by what right does government impose them?

Also, Obama promises to eliminate "burdensome" rules. Which ones are burdensome, and why? Which regulations will be eliminated, and when?

We're not holding our breaths. Federal regulations have grown massively during the previous Bush and Clinton Administrations. I shudder to think how big they'll be by the end of Obama's term(s). By not objectively distinguishing proper from improper rules, Obama reserves the power for himself, and his bureaucracies, to decide that for all of us. He did this with his health care bill, for which he's providing exemptions for hundreds of companies. Which companies qualify for these exemptions and which ones do not? That's Obama's call. This is not capitalism, and it's not even democracy. It's tyranny.

Obama says: "The perils of too much regulation are matched by the dangers of too little." How much is too much -- and why? Again, no objective standard will ever be defined.

Obama doesn't think people can regulate themselves. He implies most people are too stupid to handle a free market. Given the fact that most people voted somebody like him into the Presidency, and might even do so again, it's tempting to agree with him. Most people, at least politically, don't seem to be all that bright or reflective. At the same time, only a free and unregulated -- yes, you read that right: unregulated -- society can produce the business and scientific geniuses required to get things done and keep things expanding and progressing.

Where do you think it comes from?

The brilliant innovators of history have themselves to thank, not capitalism or any other economic system, for getting the job done. It's just that capitalism is the system that leaves them free to do so.

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/business/6318-government-regulation-is-killing-business.html

7 March 2011 Sylvia Bokor

Thousands of regulations and thousands of business people are harassed by government regulations to the point of anger, frustration and emotional drain that cannot be calculated by any measure save stroke or heart attack.

I received a letter from a businessman who had been strangled by government regulations. As he puts it, "I lost two companies due to the state's regulators and federal regulators misconduct."

Fed up, he moved his company to Texas where the climate is business-friendly. Many businessmen have done the same. For instance, Marita Noon Executive Director of CARE, fighting tooth and nail for the right of New Mexicans to develop their natural resources, often writes about the disastrous consequences to our state of our business people moving to Texas because of the EIB.

The attacks on our oil men, our miners, our ranchers and farmers, our retailers and wholesalers, our mom and pop stores, our independents and our chains---business people of every kind---add up to thousands. Thousands of regulations and thousands of business people are harassed by government regulations to the point of anger, frustration and emotional drain that cannot be calculated by any measure save stroke or heart attack.