O'Reilly on Jon Stewarts show.

You actually believe that regulation makes it better? Capitalism allows a company to fall flat on its face. When it does, other smaller companies pick up the pieces and roll with it. Now, take what you had with the bank bailout. The bigger got even bigger and more powerful while the small guys were squashed. GREAT F'ING IDEA BIG GOVERNMENT!

Should companies be allowed to walk free? No, but there has to be a point where government has to stop. One of them is giving ANY company tax payer money. No way, no how.

 

I don't get this idea of Big Company Bad, from those that seem to promote Big Government.

The only true regulation that Big Government needs/wants is the ability to regulate profit and re-distribution.

This one reason that the European instituted the Euro. Keep Companies from running away to neighboring Country and IMO, the push for Carbon Policy.

 

I think your argument proves itself wrong. While I agree if businesses are allowed to fail other businesses will take their place, that works less well when a sector is dominated by a few very large businesses. And when that sector is banking, allowing the large businesses to fail means a spiffy new depression to hang around your neck.

The solution has to be either regulation so that no individual business is allowed to get 'too big to fail', or else bailing those large businesses out from time to time.

Essentially, for some types of vital business, you either must have regulation, the ability to bail them out from time to time, or the willingness to suffer depressions if you don't. Boom-and-bust is just a natural part of unregulated capitalism, like profits and corporate embezzlement.

And while the laissez-faire theory looks good, when it's your job that vaporizes I guarantee you'll be screaming for government intervention. I prefer regulation then allowing the failures to tank. I'm not happy about the bailout either, except it actually seems to have worked in limiting the damage. I don't know how to feel about that--I'm upset that an idea I dislike worked, but it's nice to not have soup lines.

 

In my area of work, regulations exist, they are adhered to and they add to the cost of doing business.

The client bears the cost or incurrred through the project. In the end, the cost gets pass down to the consumer or tax payer (when the Client is a government entity).

IMO opinions, like most things there are good regulations and bad regulations. Regulations are only as good as those that enforce it. There are good regulators and there are bad regulators.

It has been my experience that a lot of regulations, specially the good ones get adopted as standard pratice. When they do, the need for regulators and the regulation itself should be removed.

The biggest change that I have seen in 14 years is the safety culture. It has been amazing to see the difference. However, what drove this is not as much as regulation but the realization of the cost of doing work in unsafe manner, lost time, and cost associated with injuries.

People spending/investing have their monies best interest in mind.

 

It makes no sense because you think they should have those safety nets and be bailed out along with the hyper regulations. This actually hinders the whole process.
Those companies too large to fail with eventually fail but not in the way that you might think. There are also laws in place for them to restructure and come back afterwards without wrecking the entire financial market.

In other words, your republican friends are correct.

 

how can you say they are correct in light of whats happened to our economy?
Would we of had to bail them out if all the unregulated deals had been going on?
We let wallstreet run wild where money flows up to the top more so than down to the bottum.

 

The economic recession was a direct result of government regulation. Banks were forced to make home loans to individuals that normally would not qualify via the "community reinvestment act" and other programs.
When the housing bubble finally burst, all those loans became "under water" and the people bailed on their loans.
Again you mention the bail outs to business that never should have received them in the first place.
Why can't Wall street can run wild with their money? IT'S THEIR MONEY. NOT YOURS!
Besides, those capital gains are taxed and mean more monies to the feds.
The money you invest is your to do with as you please.

If you're expecting a cradle to grave guarantee, move to Greece or Italy. I've been there and it's fantastic with 20% VAT and 50% of your income to taxes.
Medical is free. Real fun to have your broken bone set without anesthesia, but I didn't pay a dime.
You obviously subscribe to the whole wealth redistribution mentality prevelant among libs.

 

I assume you're talking about safety or construction regulations. Financial regulations are a totally different animal. Yes, there is a small cost of compliance, but again, it's either that or risk the aftermath.

Letting entities regulate themselves is quite possibly the most retarded of all the retarded ideas Republicans put forth. If entities would (or could) self-regulate, well...how many do you want me to list out? There's that market crash the cleanup of which we're living through, a rig that go boom in the gulf, an S&L bailout, a great depression a while back...those are just the big(est) or most recent ones.

Seriously...I'm stunned when this gets suggested.

You might be talking about safety regulations that end up as best practices, and I'd reply two-fold:

1) You saw the news about the rig in the Gulf, right? I mean, it made all the papers, I think. I'm almost positive Faux even had a 30-second segment on it, with the ticker, "Liberals Blow Up Rig in GULF!!!!!" But I guess that wasn't personal safety (like 'wear a hard hat').

2) Personal safety regulations exist more easily now because they're old, because it's become common practice (a bit like wearing a seat belt--how many people do you know that now prefer to be 'thrown free' in a wreck? In the late '60s people said this with a straight face when asked about wearing a seat belt), and most importantly because they've realized the safety requirements are cheaper than the indemnity lawsuit if they disregard them. The joke there is if Republicans had their way they'd institute tort reform, which would lessen the threat of those lawsuits, which would quickly crater 'self regulation'.

I'm wondering if there exists a time-measurement device precise enough to measure the length of time it would take for the regulations to go away if that happened. There's a Cesium clock in Colorado that could do it, I bet.

Okay, sorry, I bet people would still wear hard hats. Probably.

Well, I'll give you that they think that, anyway. If the financial meltdown showed you anything it ought to be that "greed" doesn't always equal "smart" and that the splash zone can go beyond the bad actors.

 

Really. The mind boggles.

What are they? And did you tell Hank Paulson? I have a feeling he's going to feel very, very stupid after he hears from you.

I'm taking suggestions for how to respond to this one.

Anyone? I don't want to go too far, but I feel this one may be thicker than the average fuckwit and it seems it'll take sharper language than usual. Apparently my 'normal' language is kinda pointy.

 

Yup, I was right.

 

I've been in the Safety business long enough to know that if the OSHA regs went away then safety would go away. Absolutely possitively believe that. The vast majority of industries suck at following them now. No reason to believe it wouldn't get worse. If this weren't the case then people like me would have no job in safety. There wouldn't be a need for someone like me to tell them to put their glasses and hardhats on.

 

My bad, Carlos. The guy that does safety regulation for a living says self-regulation is a joke there, too.

 

John,

I work for a client that takes Safety seriously. Very seriously. It has set a precedent for how a job can and should be done.

The client has been very sucessful at changing the culture.

Generally, I do agree with you. That is the reason that I keep saying that the Culture must change and the Client has to drive the change, demand it.

Feel free to send me a PM if you are interested in some details.

 

I just wanted to quote this for future reference.

 

I presented an example.

Show me where I am disputing what John said.

I guess you are still having issues understanding me.

John is free to PM if he is interesting in what I have experience, what we have put into practice and why I think that in our case, we work hard for the benefit of individuals Health & Safety and for the bottom line, instead of fear of OSHA.

 

Your assumption is correct, I was addressing regulations (safety, environmental, design standards) that regulate the contruction industry.

The accident in the Gulf had absolutely nothing to do regulations. The accident happened because of a cultural issue (driven to some extent by cost, a cultural issue in itself).

If you were more aware of the progress made in safety in the last 20 years you may understand.

I am not getting into a Republican/Democrat discussion with you until you acknowledge that I should be entitle to may money, to pursue riches.

However, I leave it up to you to answer this question, who regulates Government. To what extend to we regulate? How do you achieve regulation? Higher fines?

Like I was hoping to imply, the more regulations that are put in construction, the better it is for me from an employment point of view.

And, I will say again, that in practice whether addressing engineering design, environmental impact, Health & Safety, the key is to train, change the culture, not provide constant oversight unless ofcourse the goal is to ensure the problems persist to guarantee the oversight.

If we really want to address a problem, we identify it and put forth a solution. And we need to be cautious about implementing any regulation that will drive some to skirt rather than embrace it.

 

I must have missed it. Or was your example just 'safety'?

Yes, I'm sure that's where the language problems are.

 

Can you define "cultural issue" I notice your just throwing that out there with no detail.

There is a such thing as checks and balances that should always be put in place for the government. This is why powers have been split up among 3 branches if I'm not mistaken?

 

Safety is where I have seen the greatest change specially with the current Client.

Environmental Compliance is part of doing business.

Environmental awareness is more prevalent in the project that I have been on as well. However, I could argue that generally speaking, we have all become more aware of the environmental in our daily life. Even the guy that is discharging his waste oil into the road side bar ditch, knows he should not.

Cultural change sometimes takes a while. Sometimes, it more responsive specially to catastrophic events.

Again, IMO regulations should always be implemented with caution and should have some expiration subject to later evaluation for continued need. I don't care what the industry is.

If there is something that I want to regulate is consumer irresponsibility? Is that a regulation that we can put in the pipeline?

 

So we know if we put a regulation in place now it blocks negative blowback.

But theres a chance that blow back might not be that negative in the long run so we'll just let it go for now and see what happens.

When the tower comes crashing down then we'll impliment it if neeed be.

"Common sense is not so common" hence self regulation = FAIL