Myth #1 that has to die

[Indenturedebtor]

The myth is that regulation is by it's very nature harmful for business. This myth holds that any regulation on business is bad for business as a whole, and further that it suppresses the little guy.

This myth has been foisted on us by our corporate media in the service of our oligarchies. May I suggest a very simple way to strike this down?

If all the businesses are subject to the same regulations then they are all still competing on the same level. If there is NO regulation, they all naturally compete to find the lowest possible denominator. In short - the slimiest wins. And when the slimiest is the most powerful, the slimiest biggest company suppresses the little guy.

[nashville_brook]

1. simple, elegant and true.

funny -- we were talking about this very thing over breakfast.

[dubeskin]

2. Regulation on business

Restricts the limits of what corporations are able to do. Depending on what is regulated, it can be bad in that it requires higher standards in production, sager workplace environments etc and in the end puts tighter reigns on business. Naturally when you put limits on something, it will be more difficult to produce that object the same way, thus raising the standards, which in the end helps consumers. BUT those restrictions help the common man. And it is definitely worth it for tighter regulation so that normal people are safe.

And naturally, businesses are going to find the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way to produce a good, regulated or not. It is just the way of corporations.

[lyonn]

3. For instance:

When pet food and toys are imported in this country it seems the U.S. companies like Mattel and Alpo, etc., are not held responsible for testing their own products especially when they are manufactured in a foreign country. We seemed to have blamed China? Do any of us know if the pet food is any safer? Toys any safer? I see many human food products now on our shelves from China, like apple juice, sheesh, mushrooms, sliced mandarin oranges, check labels, it's scary. I couldn't find the sliced mandarin oranges that were not from China and that includes the major labels like Dole. Rules, what rules or regulations, buyer beware.

Edit: Forget the FDA, they are useless.

[dubeskin]

4. Regulation is not worldwide though

And that's where it becomes tricky. Because when taxes and regulation become too heavy, businesses simply pack up and leave, and head over to China or India where they are essentially unregulated, and then import that into the US. There needs to be a middle somewhere, or try to finagle a way to block businesses from leaving the US and sticking to those regulation laws.

[scarletwoman]

6. You counter that by regulating imports. If something comes from a non-regulated

company overseas, you don't allow it in. You make it yourself here instead, thus putting more U.S. citizens to work and keeping our collective wealth here.

sw

[lyonn]

7. No wonder that crap is cheap, they can cook our food in a

big old dirty stew pot and canned. Where is the Homeland Security when we need them. How easy to contaminate our foods. We should at least be able to depend on our major labels to inspect what they import before it reaches our shelves. We already know that other countries are not regulated, so we just go along with the cheap crap they send here? What happens to our apple juice business, are we shipping them over there to be processed and then shipped back and with the extra cost of shipping the companies still get rich? I have thrown away food products I discovered were made in China. So we must spend lots of time finding where the product is from before buying. I don't buy it, but it sure limits my just grabbing an old favorite and then find out it came from China.

By the way, nothing is cheap anymore, we have been scammed again.

[salin]

10. unless of course that business is a military contracting business getting

no-bid contracts with a "cost plus percent" deal - then there is the incentive for the business not to find the cheapest ways to do things - as they *read Halliburton* are paid more when their prices are higher.

[SoCalDem]

5. The IRS "regulates" the way we pay taxes, cops "regulate" the way we drive

anbd pretty much put the ki-bosh on that whole killing each other thing.. Schools "regulate" the way kids spend their childhoods.. Bosses "regulate" our working lives..

we UNDERSTAND regulation..it seems as if the SCOTUS and congress cannot seem to figure it out..

[Gman]

8. Reminds me of Dan Akyroyd on Saturday Night Live

long ago playing the owner of a company that sold a plastic bag of broken glass as a puzzle game for kids. He claimed it was perfectly safe and didn't understand why people wanted to outlaw it.

[unblock]

9. while we're at it, why are individuals TAXED on both income and expentidures?

while corporations are taxes only on any excess of income over expenditures?

if i earn $50,000/yr and shell out $30,000, i'm taxed on $50,000 (minus a few exemptions and other modest breaks, perhaps) and i'm also taxed on many of my expenses (sales/use tax, governmental fees, etc.) in fact i'm even taxed on my wealth, having nothing to do with income and expenditures (property tax, e.g.). they litterally get you coming and going!

and yet corporations are taxed only on net profit, and can often find myriad ways to limit that, especially with the help of lobbyists and other friends in washington.

[blues90]

11. It would certainly be a lot easier , if people were honest

Just for people to have a conscience on how they do their business.

I am all for regulations but then the problem leaps out of the compose heap which is who will then be trusted to control the regulations and how many people it would take to do this sort of over sight.

It's a no win, most get screwed deal no matter how you look at it.

Hell we can't even control a thing in this country,something as simple as speed limits.

Man has made life so complicated where everyone depends on strangers in the market and all are out to sell you their products or services. When people once long ago depended on a small community then you could at least trust each other because everyones survival depended on it.

[pretzel4gore]

12. the cohersive power of gov

the myth you mention is conjoined to the threat of fascism using the 'public interest' to force people to confess/repent/obey. The problem is the media. Information. The media looks upon the public like a judo expert does an opponent- when the public pushes, the pigmedia pulls, when the public pulls, it pushes. Until we can establish a mainstream newsmedia, an HONEST media, which Ma and Pa Uptight get their daily news from, we's in trubble. That's why a 'public broadcaster' is so needed, funded by the public (and not through funding drives) and constantly embroiled in controversy, since it's afflicting the powerful-thus needing constant, widespread popular support.
Myth's die when they are not true. The fact is, mr pig regulates lotsa industry (esp. the newsmedia -just try set up a lil radio station, or start a newsmagazine). Small biz is faced by regulation that, that ...well, that provides good cover for the anti regulation big biz crowd, while increasing the burden on the life of ordinary people! DISHONESTY should be looked upon as THEE great failing, moral and legally, SINFUL if you want:
"Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. If we realized the horror and weight of lying, we would see that it is more worthy of the stake than other crimes...Once let the tongue acquire the habit of lying and it is astonishing how impossible it is to make it give it up" - Montaigne
from pg 71 of Gore Vidal's 'Dreaming War, blood for oil...etc'

In another thread, dealing with the attempted killing of Ted Kennedy at Chappaquidick in '69, an event that few even aware of in terms of Teddy being the target of murder plot etc, i posted the following , about John Kennedy jr, which typifies the way dishonesty works in the drone of normal life- and fatally injures the record of truth w/out anyone even noticing:
>I just read 'The Day John Died' by christopher anderson, a contributer at Time mag and senior editor at 'People' magazine who also wrote 21 other books, the most famous being 'The day Diana died'... on page 333 of his kennedy book, anderson writes "...blah blah did not prevent John flying to Havana on Oct23/97 for a historic meeting with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. There, 30 years after the Cuban missile crisis, John interviewed his father's bearded nemesis... blah blah blah... John was surprised when Castro professed to be a great admirer of JFK, and when he seemed to apologise for refusing Lee Harvey Oswald an entry visa into Cuba in October 1963 - an act that almost certainly would have prevented Oswald from being in Dallas one month later."
<
anderson is conning his readers. I know enough about OFFICER OSWALD (Lee was an Office/Naval Intelligence, or ONI, agent, i believe) that he simply could not have left his dayjob etc and visited Cuba anytime in late '63. Yet anderson leaves the impression Lee murdered JFK, which he didn't...
your post says myths about regulation of biz are number 1 in the need to die, or be killed, but the myth is, to some extent, based upon truth. The real THING that has to die in our culture is the sense that 'immorality' is cool, when it simply isn't. And before moralists dare talk about sex adventurers or drug users, or bank robbers, or crossdressers, or any other type immorality, they should be told "LIARS RULE THE WORLD, ya fukking dipstick!" (reader can put in their own ad hominem) and ask what the moral guardian is doing about cnn/foxnews and the local media etc! Even NovaM radio uses AP update for news source- and AP lies just for goddam kicks...

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Actually, regulation IS bad for business

Regulation generally means less profit.

My reply is "So what"?

Our way of life is not abut business, per se. It is about people. Regualtions essentially protect people from businesses.

I'll side with people every time.

[lostnfound]

14. Maybe regulation is like pruning -- helps ensure that they grow in a healthy way

not an unhealthy, imbalanced way. And that they don't take over the entire landscape.

[notesdev]

15. Regulation requires industry protection

Otherwise, regulation handicaps our industry vs. foreign industry.

In an environment where we have "free trade" with everyone, everyone has to adopt the same regulations to be on the same playing field.

That, of course, doesn't happen. So to regulate without harming competitiveness requires a tariff on foreign industry in proportion to the difference in the cost of regulation.

I for one am all in favor of tossing "free trade" into the dustbin of history where it belongs. It's a naive policy that hurts us tremendously in a largely mercantilist world trade environment.

[Indenturedebtor]

16. Very true. Perhaps with harsher penalties?

Say if an inspector finds a foreign factory not following the regulations of the trade agreement = 50% price hike for a year with all proceeds going to the government. Don't like it? Can't do business here any more. Ever.

If everyone had the same rules to play by it wouldn't make businesses non competitive.

This whole argument that there would be no business if we did this or that is bullshit. Some things would cost more, some would cost less, some would make more or less, and everyone's quality of life would be better.