Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: <none>
From: koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (Anthony Koumis)
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:35:24 EDT
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

I am responding to Jason W. Solinsky's response to my posting.  THough
this is not Anthony Koumis as listed above but his wife (I, wife, did 
the original posting to)

Unfortunately, I am not a whiz at this machine so I dont know how to
put blocks of what JWS said but let us go point by point over what
he said.

First, of all he makes the claim you do not have to work for anyone.  Thus,
if you find out your company is unsafe you can leave it and work elsewhere.
This is a very, very, very, unrealistic assumption of the workplace.

Let us say I am miner, suddenly I discover that black lung disease is
crippling my body, I no longer can breathe, do you a think a miner should
up and change his job?  Do you think there are other jobs in mining towns?
THere are not.  

But who says that the workers know the dangers.  The whole point is that
they do not know them.  The dangers of toxic waste and all those dangers
that have come out have not been a result of companies suddenly admiting that hey we have undafe workplaces but of gov't regulations and probably
litigations.

Suppose my name is Stefan Golub and I work at Film Recovery Systems Inc.
Guess what I can not speak English. THe warning notices on the drums
of cynanide which is what I work with are not in Polish which is what
I can read, nor does anyone tell me about the dangers of my work,nor
are any normal safety precautions taken.  Well guess what?  On Feb. 1985
I die of cynanide poisoning, sad but true, the company was prosecuted.

The concept of the choice of being able to work anywhere is premised on the
idea of a market with perfect iinformation and equal bargaining power.  THis 
does not exist in the USA or anywhere.

If I dont know the dangers and are poor and need money, I will take what job
I can get.  The situation for alot of people is not free choice but
in reality Hobson's Choice.


Onto point number two.  JWS says that people dont buy cars that break
down.  True but they will if they have no choice.  IF cheap cars are
unsafe and break down alot then if that is all you can afford then you will
buy that.  My point was that if the car manufactures can all make what they
want, they can all get together and make shoddy goods esp. since we are now
on a roll of trying to keep out foreign (read Japanese) goods.

And, please do not claim that the implied warrant is a basic element
of contract law.  Have you ever taken a contracts class?  Obviously, not.
And, do not claim it is as a basic right that the founders all believed in.

Under federal law, no one has to give a warranty.  If you give a written
warranty this includes nowadays implied warranties.  This act, the Magnusson-
MOss Warranty Acts comes from the 1970's.

The founders were into freedom of contract which was mistakenly read into
the constitution by the 19th C. Supreme court to do away with child
labor laws and laws saying that a baker couldnt work over 10 hours
a day (despite the strong evidence of health hazards if bakers did so).

Implied warrant of habitalities if you buy a house is something that courts
have read into the law.

Japanese car executives earn at most 16 times the lowest paid worker, in
the US car executives earn 160 times more than the lowest paid worker.  And
the US car companies produce worse products and lose money.  That is not
economically sound in my book.  If they are not producing they should be
axed.

In terms of not paying your bills, there are often good reasons why
you will not pay you bills.  For instance, the car you bought might
never been delivered, or it could be broken all the time.

There is this doctrine in the law called holder-in-due course.  Suppose
you borrowed money from bank 1, bank 1 call sell your loan to bank 2 which
becomes a holder in due course.  Well, it used to be that if you bought
a car from dealer on a loan they could sell the loan to bank 2. (they can
still do this) But if you are a holder in due course (i.e. you bought
someone's laon) you take it free of defenses.  So if you're car was a lemon
you can say to dealer, take it back I wont pay.  But if the bank now
had your loan you couldnt say that to the bank b/c it was a Hin DC.  

Not to fair is it?  Here you could have valid claims against the dealer for
not paying for the car but you would still have to pay the bank b/c they
aer holder's in due course.  Not very free that.  Well, guess waht, your
awful gov't regulators stepped in and now holder in due course status in
virtually eliminated in consumer transactions.  (they could not outfirght
eliminate it b/c the finance companies would cry but now on all consumer
good contracts there is a FTC notice saying holder in due course status does
not apply to consumer goods)

So dont assume that all people who havent paid their bills are stealing
money.  If you ever got a lemon of a car you will be happy to know
you are not a theif if you refuse to pay your installment payemnts

And, there is law protecting against the harassment by third party debt 
collectors.  There is federal law against harassment by theird party debt
collectors and most states have laws against harassment by third
party debt collectors and harassment by the original debtors.

The federal regulation is part of the Truth in Lending Act.

And, the point about unsubstantited rumors in your credit file.  The whole
point is that you dont know about them!!!!!!!  Not until you are rejected
for credit and then if you follow up by askeing to look at your file (if
you are rejected for credit, you must be told the name of a credit bureau
if one was used -- that is a govt regulation, so you can only
find out to sue someone as JWS suggest via one of those nasty gov't
regulations), even when you get in to see your file they dont
have to show it to you but only say what is in it.  They only have to show 
it to you if you sue.

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO RELY ON THIS METHOD and to sue to get it. The point
is it should be illegal for a company to gather irrelevant information
about you that has nothing to do with your credit worthiness!!!!! That
is an invasion of your privacy.

Do not assume only the gov't wants to interfere with your rights and privacy.


If people ewre going to start up and compete with bad products that
are manufacture, I havent seen it.  The point is that if all the companies
can make unsafe cars and make a profit there is no reason to make anything
better.  Unless companies are forced to make safer products you are not
going to see it.  And people wont realize products are unsafe unless
there is some regulation about safety to measure it by.

Relying on companies to certify their own food as safe is very optimistic.
If you dont trust govt regulations why would you trust individual companies
to label their own food safe.

That individualized idea of supermarkets labelling products safe is silly.
It is uneconomical, for one.  Why have the thousands and thousands of 
supermarkets have to do it when it can be done by one neutral and separate
organization.  LIttle industry funded safety controls groups are not going
to save money at all.  Instead, they would certify things safe when they
are not and who would know.

60 minutes not everyone watches. And why should we rely on people dying after
the fact to stop bad, adulterated food?  That is inane.  And even if they
were reported for having unsafe food nothing could be done if there were
no regulations to stop them.  And, if you didnt watch 60 minutes or lived
in an area that only sold that type of food and you couldnt drive elsewehre you
would be stuck.



I thinkd the statement less regulation equal more freedom is one of those
statements that if you repeat alot you will end up believing.

If we didnt have the 1st amendment, we not might be able to carry on
this debate, nor go to worship somewhere.  If we didnt have the 4th
amendment to attempt to limit police behavior you would have even more
illegal search and seizures.

REgulations can protect us from big business and the government.  Be able
to die because I ate unsafe poisoned food b/e there were no safety
standards does not equal more freedom.  It equals less freedom b/c
you had no knowledge and no choice about what you were eating.  At least
today, If i buy meatn that wasnt inspected i would know it.  BUt with
no inspections there is no way to know.


And about Pinto -- the big deal about it was no one knew they were
unsafe until they kept blowing up in rear end collisions.  There was 
no freedom to choose a cheaper but unsafe car b/c no one knew it was unsafe.

And saying you can choose b/w unsafe goods but cheaper and safer but more
expensive goods is not a choice indicating more freedom.  ALl it means
is that the people who can afford the cafer and expensive products will
buy them and the people who cant wont.  Thus, your so-called choice
is limited by your economic situation.

A free society should not let poor people die from food poisoning b/c
they choose it.  The idea of a free society is to let  everyone have equal
choice.  Safer overall food is cheaper if everyone has to make it instead
of letting people decide.

My argument is not that all regulation is good.  Just think about
how alot of regulatory agencies are influenced by the industries they
are supposed to be regulating and we know that not all regulations
produced are good (since usually they are lessening pollutin st'd or safety
standard at the expense of the average citizen)

But you can not make a blanket statement about all regulation contributes
to our being less freedom.  

Alot of it can try to put us on a better bargaining position with companies.

For example, if you went looking to buy a car you could find out different
annual percentage rates of loans and compare them.  Now, the only
reason loans are stated in terms of APR is because by law they have to.

Well, that is all for now.

Bye.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,soc.culture.usa