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The people running the country are supposed to have a brain. More is not always better. Some regulations are needed, but many are not. Or, at the very least, some regulations need to be toned down. Yes, people are being smothered by too much regulation. And if you are competing globally, you are almost certain to have a competitive disadvantage due to government regulation.
The real trouble with regulations are, people who are dishonest won't abide by them. So, the regulations only effect the folks who are trying to run an honest business. If they cannot follow the rules and remain profitable, the dishonest business owners win in the end.
Companies main goal is to provide value to their customers in exchange for those customers voluntarily paying money. It is only through commerce -- providing value to customers at prices that enable transactions -- that wealth is created. Companies that do not focus on their customers and value creation tend not to survive in the long run.
and one of the largest consumers for corporations is the government, so shouldnt they keep their customer happy and follow what the government wants?
who buys the most oil? who buys the most farmed goods? between the ethanol requirements and the farm subsidies, farmers get a large part of their yearly income from the govt. more than most other single source.
even clothes and education, the govt "buys" the most of them so they can be given out as aid for people in need.
the local mom and pop store with a person paying with food stamps, or landlords for section 8, etc. the govt foots the bill, so the direct consumer is the govt, what they do with it after it is bought is of no concern to the company any more than if you let food rot at home instead of eating it.
the govt does create a lot of "wealth" as you put it, you just dont like how it is distributed. when a company spends more time keeping the govt happy instead of one person in their store. One unhappy person cant shut down a store, one unhappy govt can.
instead of having a problem with govt regulations, it makes more sense to just get govt to stop being such a large consumer and they lose their edge with corporations. but why would either party want that?
and one of the largest consumers for corporations is the government, so shouldnt they keep their customer happy and follow what the government wants?
who buys the most oil? who buys the most farmed goods? between the ethanol requirements and the farm subsidies, farmers get a large part of their yearly income from the govt. more than most other single source.
even clothes and education, the govt "buys" the most of them so they can be given out as aid for people in need.
the local mom and pop store with a person paying with food stamps, or landlords for section 8, etc. the govt foots the bill, so the direct consumer is the govt, what they do with it after it is bought is of no concern to the company any more than if you let food rot at home instead of eating it.
the govt does create a lot of "wealth" as you put it, you just dont like how it is distributed. when a company spends more time keeping the govt happy instead of one person in their store. One unhappy person cant shut down a store, one unhappy govt can.
instead of having a problem with govt regulations, it makes more sense to just get govt to stop being such a large consumer and they lose their edge with corporations. but why would either party want that?
This is 100% spot on. 40% of the US GDP is either directly or indirectly related to government spending. It's quite scary. Reduce government spending in even a little way and you'll start killing off the private sector pretty quickly.
This is 100% spot on. 40% of the US GDP is either directly or indirectly related to government spending. It's quite scary. Reduce government spending in even a little way and you'll start killing off the private sector pretty quickly.
Reduce government spending, and the private sector will once again work for the consumer, and not for the government.
I know this is more of an emotional issue than simple economics, with each side clinging to it's view like religion. The real answer is more in the middle. Yes, there is too much government regulation, esp when local are figured in. Here's the thing though; those regulations don't appear out of thin air. Every one of them exists because some group petitions, fought, funded, to create a regulation that their particular group wanted. Every time someone says "there ought to be a law ..." -- that's where these regulations ultimately spring from. Some are good for the whole country. Some only benefit a special group. But government doesn't cause regulations; we do. By our own requests.
The other part of this is a fall out of too much profit concentrated in too few. Monopolies have always been known as overall bad for the economy. Yet many of our major businesses are now so concentrated into a few companies, as to essentially be monopolies. Two stores compete with each other and one doesn't treat you right, you go across the street. Your business is a significant enough part that it affects their bottom line and it doesn't take too many unhappy customers to force a change or go out of business. In contrast, a BORG big box store doesn't treat you right, where are you going to go? You have no choice because they are so big in comparison to your purchasing power, they don't care.
Likewise companies can move out of the country to bust wages. Now add to it Wall Street. Much of the money made on Wall Street isn't real. It's just a cut from exchanging value that already exists. So no new value is being created. In fact the overall real value is decreasing because of the cuts being taken by so many, while only the appearance of value on the books shows up. Hence the disconnect we see between the economy as measured by Wall Street -- doing great, never better, and the economy as measured by us, in our pockets, on Main Street -- stuck in a rut, going backward.
Done and done. The value of things should be determined by the free market, not the government and not some insider club.
That "free market," where is it? And where has it been hiding all these years? Regulation has, and most likely always will, serve as a barrier to the small innovative operator. That barrier has formed a huge block of very large conglomerates, and they operate just fine, regs and all. Look around at the vast wealth that has been garnered from the big box business model. The fact of that wealth having a much smaller distributive footprint is proof of the business model being a smashing success!
After all, when you are doing well, in spite of the regulations that did in your competitor, regulations become part of what enables you while crippling others. The big conglomerates are not bothered much by any rules and regulations, lawyers are in their corporate home offices for that sole purpose, and, who writes the bulk of our laws and regulations? Lawyers do. It is business symbiosis at it's best.
Businessmen speak endlessly about the need for labor to compete, but in that same vein they avoid that competitive spirit and instead form their own unions (trade groups) in order to quell real competition. Big business loves regulation, at least according to Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute, here's a quote from Worstall on the advantages of regulation:
"What regulation does is favor both the incumbents in any activity and also large companies in anything at all. For what worries business is not whether they're allowed to do something or not: but that other people will find a better way of doing it and thus compete. More regulation means that fewer upstarts can enter the market and any that do are hobbled by that regulation. The more regulation the more the current large companies can continue to be capitalist without having to worry about their practices being tempered by that market competition."
Deregulation is of course a way to cherry pick one's way through the myriad of what hurts and what doesn't, and we all know what the majority of deregulation has done for the consumer in spite of the fact that the consumer was supposed to be the big winner. No large corporation wants to do what's in the interest of the consumer, they HAVE to consider the customer on some level just to survive, but only after it has served it's own interest first.
On that note current regulation does in fact serve the populace for the most part, in fact it is the only restraint on business monopolies that a democracy can provide, in spite of corporate lawyers utilizing them to their advantage most of the time. When something works well with respect to corporate profits it's more than likely going to be around for awhile, and even growing, and in the case of business regulation--it is growing..
In my experience, federal regulations are a minor annoyance. They mainly affect the big businesses or whole industries.
Local regulations seem to be much more onerous & petty, & are cause for in your face problems like homelessness.
As someone in education, I can attest to the problems of regulations. It's not any one set, it's the combination of layers of sets from different levels. Again, federal interference is mild compared to local & state.
Regarding business regulations, businesses have a dog in the fight. They push all things in the direction of increasing profits. Teachers, however, have no such motivation. Their only motivation is the welfare and benefit of the students. Therefore unlike business, teachers should be the ones who determine the nature, regulation, direction, and the entire character of what they do -education. What's the worst outcome....-that they might get a decent income? If we can't afford that we're screwed.
Disclaimer: I've never been a teacher. I'm a retired software developer of business systems.
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