Voters under 30 were either very small or not yet born when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989. They have no memory of communism—what it meant in terms of poverty, thwarted opportunity and political repression. Closer to home, few Americans recall the likes of the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Board, which not only set the price of an airline ticket but regulated the size of the in-flight sandwiches. What millennials do know is what happened in 2008—and for many it serves as an indictment of the market system.
The people want regulation and they are getting it–good and hard, as Mencken would say. The result?
if you want lifetime employment, go into compliance.
Thanks to a reader for the pointer. I used to say that if you want to start an automobile company in this country you need a handful of engineers–and at least 1000 lawyers. Starting an independent medical practice is getting to that point.
There may be natural forces at work that cause industries to become dominated by a few large players. But there is also the unnatural force of regulation.
Yeah, regulation and socialism, the bads.
But everyone goes mute on the federal communist health care program. This programs covers eight million former federal employees, with health care provided in federally owned hospitals, and staffed by federal doctors and nurses, and paid for by federal taxpayers. I just described the VA. Pure, distilled communism.
Regulations? How about we get rid of property zoning? There are housing shortages in many major cities, and we could send bulldozers into single-family detached housing districts.
Any why is push-cart vending universally outlawed in he United States?
So, here is the thing: There are good regulations and bad regulations, and good and bad socialism, but you have to be special to tell the difference. And connected.
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I’ve never used the VA – I’m not eligible – but I’ve understood it was a cautionary tale about the perils of single payer. I’ve had military members tell me they don’t care about eligibility because they’d prefer never to have to use it. So your comment surprises me.
In some parts of the country, there is little or no property zoning. No-one has been forcibly bulldozed out of their homes – except when local government did it (see Kelo v City of New London, etc.)
Yes, there are good regulations; but most regulations aren’t. And I’m open to the possibility of good socialism; I just can’t recall ever seeing it.
His point was that there are excess single family homes, and that culling the stock could be useful, I think.
This is the same VA that has been rocked by scandal after scandal involving substandard treatment and fraud by its administrators, right?
What is “Government” other than an organization of “managers?”
In an examination of the specialization of labor (activities) what is (are) the function(s) of **those** managers?
How are those functions (specializations), and the activities for them, determined; and, by whom?
Which and how much are “self” or “institutionally” determined?
Have we not entered the stage of a “managed” society?
Do we not observe the confrontations of industrial, financial, commercial and other enterprise members of the managerial class with the members of that class in government administration?
Have not those confrontations within the managerial class become a major force in the generation of “regulations” on behalf of one sector of that class?
Government is the idiots who tell the experts how to do their job. We only listen because they have guns. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are idiots.
“Government” is “people with guns who get to tell us to do things their way or be locked up in steel and concrete cages – if we’re lucky”. It’s also a monopoly: there’s only one. Most of them conspire to prevent people from moving to another location to get a better deal – they even convince the population that migration restrictions are a benefit.
“Managers” are people with money who get to tell some people to do things their way or not be paid anymore. There are many, many managers, and you’re free to look for one who treats you better.
In a discussion about athletes getting tested for performance enhancing drugs and tainted supplements someone made the comment “you know it would be easy to just regulate supplements.”
People have a really odd idea of what is “easy.”
Compliance departments plus so-called non-profits to agitate for regulation are the answers to where to put all the college educated women in the so-called workforce. Excessive, picayune, regulation is a feature, not a bug.