Helping Those Who Don't Want Help

by: Keshawn

Fri Jan 13, 2012 at 22:30:16 PM MST

As a small business owner (or "job creator" if you're running in a primary right now), I've always had mixed emotions about regulation. On the one hand I recognize that there are huge transaction costs to everything in life being caveat emptor. I don't want to have to analyze the balance sheet of my bank every month to make sure I can safely leave my money there. On the flip side my life is routinely made harder by regulation that doesn't seem sane, or designed to help anyone. It seems very difficult to identify where the appropriate line is for regulatory bodies.

Even more troubling are cases like this closed silver mine in Idaho. Obviously things were not going smoothly in the mine, given that two people have died. Shutting the mine down is not necessarily an inappropriate response to that kind of tragedy, but I'm not sure that the 185 laid off employees are going to see it that way. I've had plenty of experience with company towns, and I rarely see much of the hostility leveled at the companies. Very likely they feel like they've had two tragedies now instead of one.

Much like in my last post when I was discussing environmental issues, regulation seems like a landmine of an issue right now. In an environment where jobs are the #1 issue, anything that leads to layoffs is going to be viewed askance. Even worse, stories like the Idaho mine are going to reinforce the idea that Democrats are out to ruin your employment. I doubt any of those 185 laid of miners are going to feel a debt of gratitude to the Democratic party.

At the same time people are crying out at the excesses of banks and "Fat cats." It's not clear however that they see more regulation as the solution. No one seems to like bankers, but no one really seems to like regulators either. In many ways this mimics my own life. You don't see the cases where regulators make your life easier, but the ones where they make your life harder are pretty obvious.

Is trying to help people who don't want help a losing proposition in the current political landscape?

On Why Voting Matters, Or, Could You Outrun The Toxic Red Flood?

by: fake consultant

Wed Oct 06, 2010 at 21:52:53 PM MST

Now I could give you a bunch of "what ifs" to make my point, or I could remind you how we spent all summer watching oil gush into the Gulf, and how that came to be...but, instead, it's "Even More Current Event Day", and we're going to visit Hungary for a extremely real-world reminder of what can go wrong when the environmental cops are considered just too much of a burden by the environmental robbers-and if today's story doesn't scare you to death, I don't know what will.

It ain't Texas, but we will surely visit a Red River Valley...and you surely won't like what you're gonna see.