From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Bush is a mother fucker
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 09:54:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.193221.4141@cs.mcgill.ca> costin@cs.mcgill.ca (Costin RIZAN) writes:
>In article <BvqAnK.7yx@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct5.191244.19614@ra.msstate.edu> cea1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Carolyn E. Adams-Price) writes:
>>>And....to all of you who think the problem with the US is
>>>business regulation, I say, I hope you drown in the pollution
>>>or are hurt by an end to safety standards that an end to business
>>>regulation would cause!!!!!

>>You obviously know nothing about business, nad I wish people like you who
>>want to tell people like me how to run MY business would keep your bloody
>>nose out of my business.  As for as I have seen in the chemical, automotive,
>>and computer industries, government regulations do little if anything to
>>prevent pollution and improve safety, and often make these these things 
>>worse.  What they do accomplish is to make everything a business wants to
>>do much more difficult.  Think aobut it.  If you wanted to start a small 
>>manufacturing business based on your personal savings, how many THOUSANDS
>>of hours of time is nedessary to abide by (and even understand) all of the
>>relevant government regulations?  

>	Exuse me but if you are going to operate a business that risks
>hurting other people it is up to you to learn how to operate it safely.

OK, tell me, how many businesses hurt and kill people today?  How many 
did 40 years ago before the government went crazy trying to run people's
affairs for them?  What makes you think that bureaucrats know more about 
how to run businesses safely and effectively than the owners?  Do you really
trust politicians to be honest, safe, and effective?  You are naive!

I should add that if you think that the bulk of business regulation is 
for safety reasons, you are quite mistaken.  Additionally, the vast majority
of nominally safety-related regulations really don't make things any safer.
For example, when I worked for Dow Chemical OSHA inspectors came in and told
us that the fire extinguishers in the hallway were 6 inches too low on
the wall for their standards.  So, they moved them (there were a LOT of them
and they were hung from brackets screwed into a cement wall), and then the 
inspectors came back and told us that the regulation had been changed and 
they needed to be lowered again.  Then they came back again and told us that
they were slightly too far apart on the wall, so we moved them again.  Then
they changed the standards for the kinds of extinguishers.  Give me a break!

If you can prove a REAL hazard, that's one thing.  If you just want to
second-guess the owners and their employees, you are out of line and poking 
your nose where it doesn't belong.  MOST regulations are of this second kind.

>>If my business results in some harm to someone, go ahead and sue the hell out
>>of me, but don't tell me how to run my business until then.  Perhaps you 
>>think that this should be applied to individual people too?  Have you
>>ever heard of the concept of innocent until proven guilty?  

>	First of all, if your business kills me or someone that is close
>to me, sueing you won't help much. Doing something that you know might 
>prove dangerous to human health until you get caught (or sued) is considered
>criminal negligence. Besides, once you start getting "sued the hell out
>of" you'll loose your business anyways. It's obviously simpler to follow
>regulations which are, more often than not, there for a good reason.

What I am saying is that businessmen ought to be subject to the same legal
restrictions AND protections as anyone else.  If you can show that I have 
a loaded gun in a vice pointed at your house on my kitchen table, the law 
will consider that a hazard even before it actually gets fired.  Likewise,
is someone is building a dynamite factory next-door, you have some business
bringing in legal restraints.  Whether fire extinguishers are 18 inches off 
the floor or 24 inches doesn't fall into such a category.  Neither do minimum
wage laws, fuel economy laws, ride-sharing laws, recycling laws, affirmative
actions laws, family leave laws...

Do you realize just how many government agencies generate these regulations?
There are city regulations, county regulations, state regulations, federal
regulations, labor regulations, EPA regulations, OSHA regulations,
zoning regulations, SEC regulations, IRS regulations, AQMD regulations,
FTC regulations.... I couldn't even count the agencies, let alone their
regulations. 

>>I don't really care whether you hate businessmen and think they all want to
>>poison everyone.  My respect for the source of such hatred is so low that
>>it doesn't matter much to me.  What matters is when people like you have the
>>government force people like me to abide by your oh-so-enlightened views
>>on how businesses ought to be run.  Who the hell do you think you are
>>anyway?  My boss?

>>If you don't think that government regulations don't impose a terrible cost 
>>on businesses, you obviously know nothing about running a business, and ought
>>to keep your nose out of the business of those who do.

>	Who gives a damn about cost on businesses when human life is in
>stake? 

So, you don't think that businesses have anything to do with people staying
alive?  It was businesses that grew the food for your last meal, transported it,
and sold it to you.  It waws businesses that made the clothes you are wearing.
It was businesses that made the building you live in and the materials it is
composed of.  It is businesses that provide the drugs to heal you when you
become sick.  It is businesses that employ the doctors who save your life if you
become injured.  It is businesses that built your car, and your toaster over,
and your television, and your stereo, and produced the materials you watch and
listen to on them.  

Would any of these businesses exist if not for profits?  Of course not.  So 
if you don't care about whether there is profit in businesses, then you 
must also not care about that which comes from that profit...practically every
tool you use and every posession you own.  

Indeed, human life IS at stake in the issue of business regulation.  If you
regulate businesses out of existence, you destroy lives on a massive scale.

I should repeat that demonstrated hazards to people do fall under the proper
control of government, but very few regulations on businesses have anything
to do with such protections.

>If you are such a business expert you know as well as I do that
>businesses do not regulate themselves where environment and safety
>is concerned. 

What are you talking about?  My company (which produces computer software)
produces no waste products to speak of, has no dangerous machines, and 
poses no masurable danger to anyone, yet I am subject to so many government
regulations, I don't even know what they all are.  Even if these could somehow
contribute to safety or "environment" (whatever that means), how can it
gain these wonderful benefits if I don't even know what the regulations are?
Even if I did know what they all were, what business do busybodies have 
telling me how much I can pay my employees, or how much sick leave I have
to offer them?

Every case I can think of with regard to safety regulation could easily be
covered by either insurance, liability, or lawsuits.  Every case of 
legitimate "environmental crimes" could be taken care of either by the above
or by a proper application of property rights.  Certainly there are problems
with liability laws, the position of insurance companies, and the protection
(and definition) of property rights as currently being applied in certain 
places, but the solution is to make them work, not chain everyone who dares to
go into business to a bureaucrat who will tell him what is good for him.
 
>If you need convincing take a trip down to Mexico and check
>out 'La Maquilladora'. Would you raise your family in a place like that?

I have never been there, but the existence of problems in a mixed economy
does NOT prove that the capitalist component of the system is flawed.  I don't
know the facts of La Maquilladora's situation, but I suspect that it is the
lack of proper protection of property rights or the lack of enforcement of 
individual rights of the citizens, NOT lack of government meddling in the 
affairs of businesses.

Tell me, do you think it would be a good idea to subject private individuals to
police searches without evidence of wrongdoing?  If not, why do you want to
have the same thing for businesses?

What do you think about academic freedom for university professors?  Should 
there be government regulation of what research will and won't be allowed?
Why not?  Would such regulation decrease the quality of the research?  Why
do you think the results of "applied" research performed by businessmen should
be any different? 

--Brian
Newsgroups: alt.politics.democrats.d,soc.culture.canada