Dean's "Re-Regulation" Of American Business

[Imran Siddiqui]

Actually che, they'd probably be against it. They'd rather have their own gauges and part sizes so their competitors couldn't sell to those companies. It was Congress that decided on a standard gauge to prevent company rail lines that didn't match.

[chequita guevara]

I dunno. A lot of those regs loked like maintenence and upkeep, so that stuff has to be replaced more frequently.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The few upkeep stuff may be the best regulations there, to prevent broken parts to be used until the trains come off the tracks. I doubt they were pushed by the companies. Most likely after an accident or two, public outcry did it.

[Adam Smith]

The regs were originally voluntary guidelines needed for the interchange of equipment among private firms. The government expanded them, made them mandatory, and can and will bust you for violations. OSHA regs are similarly detailed, and have similarly little effect.

One side effect is that regs like this freeze technology. For example, US railroad signal boxes use vacuum tubes adn relays, because it would literally take an Act of Congress to allow the use of integrated circuits.



And yes, Che, its because I respect you.

[Kuciwalker]

The whole thing about voting for a Democrat or Republican because otherwise your vote is "wasted" reminds me of a Hitchhiker's quote:

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

[TCO]

Originally posted by MrFun


Alrighty then -- no more of that again.

But it was just ***-for-tat, you have to admit.

Wimp. Of course my ass is Ming's...

[TCO]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
IIRC the relevant provision was a Pennsylvania state law which prohibited mining within 300 feet of an existing mine. The company thought it was in compliance. The problem was that the maps were bad.

Don't be mixing in facts like that. Che likes to live in fantasy land. I mean we are talking about a person who still idolizes communism...

[TCO]

Originally posted by Ramo


Other reasons for a libertarian to support Dean:
-His campaign is actually democratic! It's a grass-roots campaign, not run by a bunch of corporations and other entrenched interests that the Republicans and Democrats stand for. Voting for Dean in 2004 means revolutionizing politics - and the possibily to vote for Browne, etc., down the line. This is probably the biggest reason I'm supporting him. I don't like quoting politicians, but as Dean said, I want my country back!
-He's a step forward on ending the war on drugs. Not a huge step, and he's been doing some considerable waffling on this issue, but he seems to want to somewhat scale back prison time for using drugs. For instance, he's said he'd support a moratorium on medical marijuana raids.
-As I just wrote, he's said he'd scale back agrisubsidies to only family-farms.
-He's argued for a less extremist position on a wide variety of foreign policy issues from Colombia to Israel.
-He's argued for far less corporate welfare in general.

He is still getting lots of union and fatcat and trial lawyer dollars. They have set up soft money fronts to spend the stuff. Soros gave 10 million.

[TCO]

I'm caught up now...

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The hard way is my specialty. You're lucky I let you learn the easy way this time.

[DanS]

And I can tell you, from having actually done the analysis, that there is zero, zip, nada, not any correlation between increased enforcement of these regulations and improved railroad safety.

That is really surprising to me. I always assumed that at least some regulation in most industries was good. Maybe I ought to rethink my assumptions.

[Ned]

It looks like Che has found a Democrat he likes.

Che, you made a good point about the shrimp and about the slave labor. Obviously, we need to impose restrictions on shrimp fishing as a part of global treaties with international enforcement. It makes no sense to impose restrictions only on US shrimpers.

Ditto, "slave" labor. However, IIRC, Bush made a very strong statement concerning slavery in his speech to the UN. Did they do anything about it? Has Dean even mentioned the problem?

[Ned]

Also, Clinton is the free trader in America. Bush has been very protectionist. Were a Democrat from the Clinton wing running, I would consider supporting him or her. But alas, all the Dems seem to have gone seriously left, with Dean constantly moving even farther left to provide separation.

[TCO]

Originally posted by DanS


That is really surprising to me. I always assumed that at least some regulation in most industries was good. Maybe I ought to rethink my assumptions.

I've seen lots of times where increased stringency of a safety standard does not convert into more safety. there are lots of regulations with poor cost/benefit. Not all. But many.

[Berzerker]

Nor does regulation kill. In fact, it does the opposite. It saves lives.

Tell that to the millions killed by the DEA and FDA.