From: koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (Anthony Koumis)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Regulations
Date: 7 Apr 92 01:16:25 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

I am so sick and tired of reading and listening to all this rot about how
less regulation by the government will make us more free.  It is time to wake
up and smell the coffee.

It is very easy and simplistive, hence attractive for Quayle and other 
intellectual lightweights to run around saying this.  And, businesses love to
 blame 
regulations for why they are not doing so well instead of often laying
the blame on themselves.

Did it ever occur to you that regulations are often needed and actually 
helpful.
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. :-(

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

People must look carefully at what the regulation is andnot just condemn
them outright.

Simple solutions got us into this mess of an econmoy to begin with.  THINK
OF REAGAN - he thought it was in all in black & white.  And Bush who
jettisoned his opposition to Voodoo economics so he oculd be V.P. is now
reaping what he helped sow.

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/

The person who presided over Pinto was Lee Ioccaco, now head of Chrysler.
How is that for knowing how to get ahead in the world.

So, think carefully at all the implications of what those LIberatarians and
Quayle people say.  We do not live in Jeffersonian times. 

Koumis's wife