How Awesome Would the U.S. Economy Be If It Were Set Free from Massive Government Regulations?

[aaronleland]

 

[hipeter924]

A proper level of regulation is absolutely necessary. The return of Glass Steagall or something like it would be a wonderful example.

The hard left is content to strangle those evil corporations with regulations.

The hard right is content to ignore the need for effective and efficient regulation and control of markets.

Equilibrium, baby.

.

To fix the mess of the financial crisis you would need to:

a) Establish Glass Steagall again, or something like it.

b) Regulate derivatives trading.

c) Close the Federal Reserve, or replace it with a government run reserve bank overseen by Congress.

d) Make bailouts illegal, so that if there is another financial crisis within the next decade the US taxpayer doesn't have to foot the bill for corporate welfare. Not to mention it would establish one of the major building blocks of a true free market economy, where businesses rise and fall on their own merits.

To fix the US economy in general you would need to:

a) Make government subsidies and corporate lobbying illegal, so that businesses and consumers exist on an even playing field.

b) Make sure small and medium sized businesses pay no more tax than large corporations.

c) End credit scores, which encourage high debt and penalize saving money. Basically credit scores are Keynesian economics taken to an extreme.

 

[Mustang]

Clean coal?

 

[bripat9643]

Have you ever stopped to consider that regulations actually spur business on? Think about it!

I'll give you one small example out of thousands. Fire regulations require sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, etc. All of those business that make and install those items would never have flourished in the first place and could be put out of business if they were no longer required.

The idea that corporations would install sprinkler systems without government regulations is fatuous. Insurance companies would demand it, or at least charge much higher rates for buildings not equipped with them. When I worked construction, it wasn't government officials who came around to inspect the fireproofing and the sprinkler systems, it was agents from the company insuring the building.

Furthermore, you theory is an example of the broken window fallacy. Spending money on unneeded features and thereby increasing the cost of a capital expenditure does not increase jobs. It merely diverts money that would have been spent elsewhere on more productive investments to an unproductive expense. It decreases our standard of living.

 

[bripat9643]

Yes, the sales do have to be intentional. That was your claim, that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. It's an idiotic claim, so I understand why you're running away from it now.

The examples we see today do indeed show the regulations don't work. Such incidents are no less frequent now than they were in the past.

I'm not running away from anything, son. That wasn't an either/or statement. Regulation helps suppress both the intentional and accidental selling of tainted food. You're the one that's running away from your thesis.

That's a claim that has yet to be proven, but the claim was that without regulations businessmen would be willing to kill an injure people by knowingly selling them tainted food. Accidents don't support the claim.

You admitted some tainted food has been sold. Now you're trying to distract us with bogus claims about what I said. Nice try, pitypat, but you're going to have to do a lot better to win this argument.

I never claimed tainted food has never been sold. Your Komrade Moonglow, on the other hand, did claim that that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. That is the thesis being discussed. We can debate whether government regulations have reduced accidents, but that's another subject.

 

[konradv]

Cuyahoga River, Cleveland(1969)

Ah, good times before all those nasty regulations.

What Price Clean Water - Bob of the Ozarks

 

[LoneLaugher]

What is the most heavily regulated industry in America?

Medicine.

Excellent. How's that industry doing?

It's costing everyone a fortune. Why do you think that is?

How is the industry doing? You said "medicine" but I suppose you meant the "health care" industry. Is it growing? Are jobs available? Is there profit? How about stock prices?

Let's go, genius. Tell me how massive regulations in the most regulated industry is killing business.

 

[bripat9643]

Isn't saintly corporate America more than willing and capable of policing themselves without government interference?

LOL! You want to know what American business would look like if regulations were removed? Take a look at the products advertised on conservative talk radio if you want to see and hear what it would be like. Overnight, America would be turned into one big vitamin supplement scam with every product promising miracles while delivering nothing but a temporary placebo effect. But don't bother trying to sue them. The chances are that Republicans would restrict lawsuits because that would be considered a nuisance to business in their effort to bring "value" (but certainly not family values) to their customers.

It's like you read my mind...except I immediately thought of phony Rx.

Due to the incredibly lax regulations on physicians, BritPat should check out all the pain clinics that are thriving in south Florida and all the Oxy addicts they are creating. I guess that's nirvana to him.

That's the conservatives' idea of freedom from gov't intrusion.

Lack of government intrusion is exactly what freedom is, moron.

 

[bripat9643]

Ah, good times before all those nasty regulations.

What Price Clean Water - Bob of the Ozarks

Looks like your government regulations didn't work. Everything that occurred to cause that spill was government regulated.

 

[aaronleland]

 

[bripat9643]

What is the most heavily regulated industry in America?

Medicine.

Excellent. How's that industry doing?

It's costing everyone a fortune. Why do you think that is?

How is the industry doing? You said "medicine" but I suppose you meant the "health care" industry. Is it growing? Are jobs available? Is there profit? How about stock prices?

Let's go, genius. Tell me how massive regulations in the most regulated industry is killing business.

Healthcare is three times more expensive than it needs to be and the cost is killing off all other industries. The fact that government regulation requires a lot of spending isn't a good thing, numskull. The legal industry is also doing fabulously, but it's at the expense of every other American.

 

[konradv]

Yes, the sales do have to be intentional. That was your claim, that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. It's an idiotic claim, so I understand why you're running away from it now.

The examples we see today do indeed show the regulations don't work. Such incidents are no less frequent now than they were in the past.

I'm not running away from anything, son. That wasn't an either/or statement. Regulation helps suppress both the intentional and accidental selling of tainted food. You're the one that's running away from your thesis.

That's a claim that has yet to be proven, but the claim was that without regulations businessmen would be willing to kill an injure people by knowingly selling them tainted food. Accidents don't support the claim.

You admitted some tainted food has been sold. Now you're trying to distract us with bogus claims about what I said. Nice try, pitypat, but you're going to have to do a lot better to win this argument.

I never claimed tainted food has never been sold. Your Komrade Moonglow, on the other hand, did claim that that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. That is the thesis being discussed. We can debate whether government regulations have reduced accidents, but that's another subject.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. I guess you're having trouble keeping your "facts" straight. I never said you said tainted food was never sold. However, to say no one has ever knowingly sold tainted food is ludicrous. Even today dangerous products that are illegal in the U.S. are sold abroad to your 3rd world, no-regulation, libertarian paradises.

 

[konradv]

Ah, good times before all those nasty regulations.

What Price Clean Water - Bob of the Ozarks

Looks like your government regulations didn't work. Everything that occurred to cause that spill was government regulated.

Not at the time. You need to study your history before shooting from the hip.

 

[LoneLaugher]

What is the most heavily regulated industry in America?

Medicine.

Excellent. How's that industry doing?

It's costing everyone a fortune. Why do you think that is?

How is the industry doing? You said "medicine" but I suppose you meant the "health care" industry. Is it growing? Are jobs available? Is there profit? How about stock prices?

Let's go, genius. Tell me how massive regulations in the most regulated industry is killing business.

Healthcare is three times more expensive than it needs to be and the cost is killing off all other industries. The fact that government regulation requires a lot of spending isn't a good thing, numskull. The legal industry is also doing fabulously, but it's at the expense of every other American.

You moved the goalposts.

I'm still waiting for you to list the specific government regulations that your OP referred to. Gas can spouts don't cut it.

 

[Mustang]

Have you ever stopped to consider that regulations actually spur business on? Think about it!

I'll give you one small example out of thousands. Fire regulations require sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, etc. All of those business that make and install those items would never have flourished in the first place and could be put out of business if they were no longer required.

The idea that corporations would install sprinkler systems without government regulations is fatuous. Insurance companies would demand it, or at least charge much higher rates for buildings not equipped with them. When I worked construction, it wasn't government officials who came around to inspect the fireproofing and the sprinkler systems, it was agents from the company insuring the building.

Furthermore, you theory is an example of the broken window fallacy. Spending money on unneeded features and thereby increasing the cost of a capital expenditure does not increase jobs. It merely diverts money that would have been spent elsewhere on more productive investments to an unproductive expense. It decreases our standard of living.

You need to do a little research. Businesses have been dragged kicking and screaming into the era of consumer and employee protection. At every stage, they've argued that it would hamper their ability to compete. The irony is that was actually true BEFORE regulation when companies could elect to do something or not do something. So, perhaps company A would choose to dispose of its pollution responsibly. Company B decides not to do so because it would give it a cost advantage over company A. That's the reason that so many companies decided to just dump their waste in lakes and streams. THAT is what unfettered capitalism ends up promoting whether it wants it our not. But guess what? The people do NOT want their lakes and rivers to be smelly, polluted, and lifeless repositories of toxic water where people can't swim and fish and water fowl can't live. That's why the gov't did something about it; it was because businesses would NOT do it when it was their choice alone.

 

[bripat9643]

Yes, the sales do have to be intentional. That was your claim, that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. It's an idiotic claim, so I understand why you're running away from it now.

The examples we see today do indeed show the regulations don't work. Such incidents are no less frequent now than they were in the past.

I'm not running away from anything, son. That wasn't an either/or statement. Regulation helps suppress both the intentional and accidental selling of tainted food. You're the one that's running away from your thesis.

That's a claim that has yet to be proven, but the claim was that without regulations businessmen would be willing to kill an injure people by knowingly selling them tainted food. Accidents don't support the claim.

You admitted some tainted food has been sold. Now you're trying to distract us with bogus claims about what I said. Nice try, pitypat, but you're going to have to do a lot better to win this argument.

I never claimed tainted food has never been sold. Your Komrade Moonglow, on the other hand, did claim that that businessmen knowingly sold tainted food to make a buck. That is the thesis being discussed. We can debate whether government regulations have reduced accidents, but that's another subject.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. I guess you're having trouble keeping your "facts" straight. I never said you said tainted food was never sold. However, to say no one has ever knowingly sold tainted food is ludicrous. Even today dangerous products that are illegal in the U.S. are sold abroad to your 3rd world, no-regulation, libertarian paradises.

"Dangerous" as determined by who? Cigarettes are "dangerous," but people want to buy the despite knowing of the danger. The FDA has considered a lot of things to be dangerous that later turned out to be safer than the alternative. Taking cotton clothing for infants. The FDA determined that it was "dangerous" because it was flammable, so it required manufacturers to apply a fire retardent to the clothing. It turned out the fire retardent was carcinogenic. The EPA required a host of pesticides to be banned because they were supposedly carcinogenic. However, it was later discovered that the test to determine whether a substance was a carcigen determined that stuff like broccoli was more carcinogenic than the chemicals the EPA banned.

So what are these "dangerous products" that are sold overseas with no-regulation?

 

[paulitician]

Some like to only focus on wrongs committed by a few large Corporations in the past. They use those wrongs as an excuse to force more Government on the People. But they don't realize they're actually helping the large Corporations and hurting the Small Businesses.

The large Corporations can afford the armies of Lawyers and the huge costs of over-reaching Government intrusion. But Small Businesses cannot. Small Businesses are on the ropes. They need some relief. Less Government intrusion is the only way they'll survive.

 

[Mustang]

Isn't saintly corporate America more than willing and capable of policing themselves without government interference?

LOL! You want to know what American business would look like if regulations were removed? Take a look at the products advertised on conservative talk radio if you want to see and hear what it would be like. Overnight, America would be turned into one big vitamin supplement scam with every product promising miracles while delivering nothing but a temporary placebo effect. But don't bother trying to sue them. The chances are that Republicans would restrict lawsuits because that would be considered a nuisance to business in their effort to bring "value" (but certainly not family values) to their customers.

It's like you read my mind...except I immediately thought of phony Rx.

Due to the incredibly lax regulations on physicians, BritPat should check out all the pain clinics that are thriving in south Florida and all the Oxy addicts they are creating. I guess that's nirvana to him.

That's the conservatives' idea of freedom from gov't intrusion.

Lack of government intrusion is exactly what freedom is, moron.

It sounds like the interests of criminals and conservatives have much in common.

 

[bripat9643]

Isn't saintly corporate America more than willing and capable of policing themselves without government interference?

LOL! You want to know what American business would look like if regulations were removed? Take a look at the products advertised on conservative talk radio if you want to see and hear what it would be like. Overnight, America would be turned into one big vitamin supplement scam with every product promising miracles while delivering nothing but a temporary placebo effect. But don't bother trying to sue them. The chances are that Republicans would restrict lawsuits because that would be considered a nuisance to business in their effort to bring "value" (but certainly not family values) to their customers.

It's like you read my mind...except I immediately thought of phony Rx.

Due to the incredibly lax regulations on physicians, BritPat should check out all the pain clinics that are thriving in south Florida and all the Oxy addicts they are creating. I guess that's nirvana to him.

That's the conservatives' idea of freedom from gov't intrusion.

Lack of government intrusion is exactly what freedom is, moron.

It sounds like the interests of criminals and conservatives have much in common.

Government is nothing more than an organized criminal gang, so your analogy is faulty. Liberals are the ones who have much in common with criminals.

 

[Mustang]

LOL! You want to know what American business would look like if regulations were removed? Take a look at the products advertised on conservative talk radio if you want to see and hear what it would be like. Overnight, America would be turned into one big vitamin supplement scam with every product promising miracles while delivering nothing but a temporary placebo effect. But don't bother trying to sue them. The chances are that Republicans would restrict lawsuits because that would be considered a nuisance to business in their effort to bring "value" (but certainly not family values) to their customers.

It's like you read my mind...except I immediately thought of phony Rx.

Due to the incredibly lax regulations on physicians, BritPat should check out all the pain clinics that are thriving in south Florida and all the Oxy addicts they are creating. I guess that's nirvana to him.

That's the conservatives' idea of freedom from gov't intrusion.

Lack of government intrusion is exactly what freedom is, moron.

It sounds like the interests of criminals and conservatives have much in common.

Government is nothing more than an organized criminal gang, so your analogy is faulty. Liberals are the ones who have much in common with criminals.

Well, with the new hybrid mix of gov't and big business interests colluding together in such a way that wealthy business interests finance the campaigns of politicians who end up passing legislation that's favorable to the people who helped get them elected, I would have to agree with you.

However, in that particular context, at least the Democrats haven't sold their souls en masse as a political party like the Republicans have which means that they're marginally not quite as guilty as the Republicans in that regard.