From: solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Regulations
Date: 7 Apr 92 05:30:22 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <1992Apr6.211627.10781@husc3.harvard.edu>, koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (Anthony Koumis) writes:

|> If you are a worker and work at a company often the only safety guidelines that
|> are followed (if the company does follow them unlike that chicken factory
|> of last year that had locked fire doors) will be governemnt safety
|> regulations.  If you die from unsafe work conditions b/c there were no
|> "oppressive regulations" you sure aint more free. you are dead. :-(

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORK FOR ANYBODY. You choose what jobs you want to take. You
have the freedom not to take a job with safety hazards, and market pressures will
force companies to pay more to attract the same quantity and quality of workers
at less desireable jobs (i.e. dangerous ones)

|> 
|> How about all those car manufacturers now saying how safe they are b/c they
|> have airbags???? Perhaps if they didnt bother to fight for years - I am talking
|> years, airbags were supposed to become mandatory in about 1981 but then
|> Ronnie got elected -- they might have used the money to invest inbetter 
|> products
|> instead of fighting safety regulations.  Who wants unsafe cars that break down.
|> Perhaps if car manufacturers didnt waste so much  money on efforts like that
|> and paying their executives too much money, they owuldnt have to blame the
|> Japanese for their problems, fire American workers (instread of 
|> the excecutives) and send jobs to low wage countries.

1) People don't buy cars that break down.

2) It is part of the implied warranty when you buy a car that there are no
intrinsic design flaws that would cause cars to always break down. This is not
part of regulations, but rather basic elementary contractual law that was drawn
up around the same time that the founders of our country (libertarians all) wrote
the constitution.

3) The workers were fired because it was not economical to continue employing them

4) If there were no business regulations, no money would have been spent on
pushing for and against legislation.

5) The high salaries commanded by top executives are economically sound. A single
executive decision often alters the companies profits by more than the CEO gets
paid in an entire year. Given the relatively low costs (a couple of million is
nothing) versus the potential gain (Billions [at least in GM's case]) it is a
good decision for the board to make.

|> 
|> Suppose you havent paid your bills and some debt collector comes after you.
|>  Well
|> there is gov't regulation to stop them from calling you up 10, 20 times a day,
|> 
|> at all hours of the day, or from calling you r relatives or your boss.  So 
|> there is a reguation freeing your from unwanted interference.

I watched an interesing documentary about this on TV a few years ago. It seems
that in states with strong debters protection laws, the collection agencies are
hundreds of times more brutal in their methods than in other states. The fact of
the matter is that if you owe somebody money, and you don't pay, you are
stealling from them. Just as shareholders should be responsible for their
companies debts, you are responsible for yours. If you get something and you
don't pay for it, you should go to jail. You can't steal things.

BTW, most states have NO legislation preventing the harrassment of debters. The
best a debter can do is nail the collection agency on the same harrasment laws
that apply to everyone.

|> 
|> It isnt cthe gov't that necessarily poses the most threat to our freedom.  Do
|> you know that credit bureaus have reams and reams of info on most people and 
|> give it to potential employers and landlords.  Unfortunately, there is no
|> law saying the information has to be relevant for whatever the infomation is
|> needed for.  So they can pass on unsubstantiated rumours about you and you
|> probably wont find out.  There is some regulation on the matter but it
|> doesnt have that much bite to it.

Thare is nothing wrong with that. If somebody uses unsubstantiated rumors to
puplicly slader or libel you, you can sue. Other than that people should be able
to share information with other groups they trust.

|> 
|> LIbertarians are saying they are for freedom so no more regulation.  Do
|> you really think unbridled economic competition is going to get us
|> more freedom and better choices.  NO WAY, the companies will get together
|> and form monopolies and give you bad products at high prices.

Whenever there is a bad product at a high price, there is room for a start-up
enterprise. I would be very happy if I saw a situation where all of the companies
werre producing a product poorly at high prices. I could get in there and make a
profit. (in fact the reason I'm here is because the advancement of technology
causes this to happen to ALL computer products over very short periods of time,
and I intend to take advantage of that fact.)

|> 
|> People need to learn their history.  There was a reason for antitrust laws.
|> Look at the meat products for sale in 1900 when the Jungle was written.

The Jungle was an early form of the media, that made money by reporting on this.
Today, whenever there is a situation which would cause public outrage, the media
grabs ahold of it. In fact it is a billion dollar industry. Without government
regulation on businesses, this industry would grow even larger, its size being
controlled by economics, instead of the government. If, for example, the
regulations on food agencies were removed, private enterprises into the business
of certifying the claenliness of food would appear. Supermarkets would pay money
to have them verify that all trhe food there met standards. If such agencies
found it profitable to accept large sums of money in exchange for incorrectly
certifying the cleanliness of food, you'd probabally see it on 60 minutes the
next week.

|> 
|> And look where deregulation got us with the airline industry.  Less
|> companies b/c they all merged or went bankrupt.
|> 

The airline industry, like the Railroad oligopoly before it, was made by the
government, and despite "deregulation" is still completely controlled by the
government.

|> Less regulation=more freedom is a big fallacy propagated by those companies
|> who control and contribute to the GOP as well as the Dems but more likely
|> the GOP.  THey dont want to be regulated b/c they want to produce goods
|> cheaply (pay low wages, no safety standards) and badly (if we all produce
|> equally bad products it doesnt matter) that we will have to buy (since they
|> are all for protectionism and "America first") and they can make big
|> profits.

Less regulation is BY DEFINITION MORE FREEDOM. The fact that people get killed by
freedom does not change this fundamental truth.

|> If you really think that Corporations have us at heart when they talk of less
|> regulation to make them more competitive. THink of Pinto.  Ford fought for
|> years against the standard that would have made them increase the impact 
|> withstanding of the PInto's rear fender.  They did this because they didint
|> want to spend the extra about five dollars per pinto to fix the problem.
|> And they didnt fix it on their own b/c they decided the cost of paying off
|> victims of rear-end collision accidents of Pintos was cheaper than spending
|> a few bucks to make the Pinto safer/

People often chose to pay less money and accept more danger. THAT IS THEIR
CHOICE. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TELL SOMEBODY THAT HE/SHE MUST PAY SO THEY CAN BE
MORE SAFE. THIS IS THE NATURE OF FREEDOM.

The people who bought those cars had access to the multi-million dollar industry
that tests and examines cars to determine just how safe they are. They wanted to
save money, and in exchange they risked their lives a little. People should be
allowed to gamble.

Jason W. Solinsky