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Deregulation. Some good news.


rkbabang

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The Trump presidency isn’t all bad news. I guess every mushroom cloud has a silver lining.

 

“during the Reagan presidency, both the Federal Register and federal regulations decreased by more than one-third. And as impressive as this record surely was, it’s already been broken by Donald Trump”

 

https://fee.org/articles/trump-is-quietly-deregulating-all-the-things/

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I'm very skeptical

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-24/the-truth-about-trump-and-deregulation

 

The thing is I don't think significant deregulation can occur without legislative action. I would guess 90% of regulations in the US don't really make sense. What would be cool is if the federal government used its commerce clause powers to rescind most professional licensing laws across the entire country or eliminate all interstate trade barriers.

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What would be cool is if the federal government used its commerce clause powers to rescind most professional licensing laws across the entire country

I can understand the interstate trade deregulation. But why professional licenses?

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What would be cool is if the federal government used its commerce clause powers to rescind most professional licensing laws across the entire country

I can understand the interstate trade deregulation. But why professional licenses?

 

A general article:

https://www.brookings.edu/research/occupational-licensing-and-the-american-worker/

 

Or here for specific examples:

http://ij.org/case/florida-diet-coaching/

http://ij.org/case/north-carolina-makeup-schools/

http://ij.org/case/louisiana-threading/

http://ij.org/case/charleston-tour-guides/

http://ij.org/case/iowa-hair-braiding/

 

The IJ site has a bunch of cases like this.

 

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Ah ok, that makes more sense. I'll admit when I think of professional licenses I think of occupations such as doctors, lawyers, engineers. Not hairdressers, diet coaches, etc.

 

In this latter case I agree, the "license" is complete rent-seeking. I do think there is a line to be drawn, and I think this paragraph sums it up nicely:

 

Typically, customers face few adverse effects from low-quality work, or they can readily evaluate the work’s quality themselves. For instance, customers can choose a tailor and decide whether the pant hemming done is satisfactory, all without benefit of a license. Potential problems arise, however, when work quality is difficult to observe and harm from low-quality work is substantial. In economic terms, a problem of “asymmetric information” may result, with consumers unable to distinguish between high- and low-quality work. For example, an incompetent surgeon may be hard to identify – at least ahead of time – and patients may suffer serious harms before having the opportunity to learn from repeated interactions.

 

 

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I see this a lot in real estate. In KY wall trades are increadibly licensed and regulated. Want to be a plumber, Electrician, or Hvac installer? That’s gonna take 2 years as an apprentice (which is basically tool running) and 4 years as a journeyman. Want to manage property? Great your realtors license, then work under a broker for 2 years, with sub par wages.

 

It’s crazy. Modern indentured servitude.

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Isn't KY red state? Aren't these guys for no regulations?

 

There are no US states without a crazy amount of regulations & ridiculous licensing laws.  Republicans for the most part campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.

 

EDIT:  Republicans might actually care about their precious social issues (the places I think they are the most wrong), but on financial issues regardless of what they say when campaigning they are mostly all big government crony-capitalists at heart.  The opposite of Democrats who care a great deal about their big government socialist financial issues (the places I think they are the most wrong), but, campaign rhetoric aside, are happy to go along with the Republicans on war, prisons, crime, drugs, prostitution, etc...

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Tried finding a thread here in the politics forum about government inefficiency to post this, hopefully this thread is close enough.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/fema-contract-puerto-rico.html

 

For this huge task, FEMA tapped Tiffany C. Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past.

 

Here is one reader's response:

 

She was also banned from one agency from being able to be awarded any contracts over $50,000 until January 2019, for being constantly late and failing to meet contract requirements. Those 13 contracts you were referring to totaled only $80,000.

 

She was awarded a $156 million contract, which she even claimed after her contract was terminated that she would have missed the deadline by a minimum of two weeks. It's a fucking sham. FEMA was paying $5.10 for each meal for simple flash frozen chicken/rice, vegetable soup, and mushrooms/rice, even when shipped all the way to Puerto Rico, that is absurdly high.

 

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I try to be as much of a realist as possible, and I'm not burying my head in the sand and saying the gov't does everything right/better.

 

It's usually easier to criticize the private sector because it's more publicized. The SEC requires material news to be released, tons of shareholders with their $$$ invested are constantly investigating, etc. Gov't watchdog groups are not so well funded and routinely dismissed as partisan hit jobs.

 

Both public/private enterprise do some things both better and worse than the other. And when each one royally screws up, it's upsetting. And both can learn from each other. The worst offending private companies can learn a conscience, and the most inefficient parts gov't can learn who their real shareholder is (the taxpayer).

 

The problem is, neither parties really have an incentive to do so aside from common sense.

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Both public/private enterprise do some things both better and worse than the other.

 

This is certainly true.  Nothing beats government at efficiently slaughtering large numbers of people and engaging in theft of resources on a massive scale to fund it.  When you want wealth creation and progress you turn to the private sector, if raping and pillaging is more your style the public sector is where you go.

 

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+1 Rkbabang

 

It remains a mystery to me why we have investors on this board who preach Munger's teachings, especially around incentives, who criticize improper corporate behaviour and abuse but, do not understand that government is the worst environment possible for lack of accountability, corruption and waste?

 

That is not to say that government should not have a purpose but, it should be limited to what the private cannot do.

 

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