A conversation between Business and Government

And did society collapse into a cocaine-fueled frenzy of addiction? No, it didn't, and the amount of cocaine they put into Coca-Cola was a very small amount, and it was clearly advertised on the can, hence the name, COCA-Cola. Moreover, the advertised intent of Coca-Cola was entirely consistent with what it contained, that is, it was marketed to people looking for a jolt of energy in a tasty drink. That is hardly comparable to surreptitiously lacing green beans with cocaine or heroin in order to increase sales, which would more than likely backfire as people buy green-beans because they are HUNGRY, not because they are trying to get high on cocaine. Like I said, if they really want cocaine in their green beans, then they can just buy some coke and sprinkle it on top of their food.

I have to go right now, but will address the rest of your post later.

 

I'm not an anomaly. Working class people (and even welfare recipients) typically are not short time/money (although assuredly the inclination) to meet these premiums, they are making choices that spend more than they make. You insinuate that the benefits of a lot of these regulations would be better left to people to spend on things they want. I think you might be able to "trick" people into thinking some regulations would be better off gone so that they can afford a new PS3, but ultimately when they see what they've lost they would cry foul on the businesses and demand the same in the end. We've already gone through this "decision" phase 100 yrs ago, and these regulations came about due to them, why rehash them now? You think we just randomly made regulations to begin with? Small businesses aren't targeted much, and when you see someone portray it in this light, it is almost always due to funding of large businesses trying to devolve the issue by making broad assumptions on narrow research data.

Again, it was an intentionally silly conversation content because the issue is not cocaine-laced green beans (although companies have used to cocaine in their products before to drive consumption), but rather that the length of bills is being mis-marketed as government incompetence, when it is business slipperiness. That's the point. I intentionally gave a silly example so as not to make that the focal point, but somehow it has shifted that way anyway. I thought if I tried to give a realistic example we would be arguing about the details, but if I gave an obviously silly example we could talk about the more abstract point of: # PAGES OF REGULATION NOT NECESSARILY BEING A FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT INEPTNESS BUT BUSINESS CORRUPTION.

ONLY if other competitors are not doing AND customers are aware of it. This leads to collusion between oligopoly competitors for the former, and lack of transparency (by muddling issues, using short-cuts the public is unaware of, etc.) for the latter.

I have seen an episode where they became sick. Also I've seen them warn others against this behavior and stress the need to properly wash the food, etc. Also have you ever heard of people going to Mexico being warned "not to drink the water"? It is a major problem for developing nations (look into it, I can provide links if need be), that gets progressively better as they REGULATE.

Maybe there is some truth here, but I don't think this would be easier on businesses to have two different cans of green beans one with regulations for elderly etc. and one for the rest of us. Even if they did don't you think people would pay the extra nickel for the green beans that were edible to anyone rather than buying the ones that were only consumable by people with good immune systems.

Agreed, I'd like some specific, educated public discourse on such regulation, rather than us just agreeing that we need "less" regulation vaguely and leaving it up to some corporate lawyer to decide which regulations these are. That's whats happening right now.

 

Good post but "blaming" business for acting in their own interests is stupid because every liberal poster on this forum would do something similar if they were a green beam tycoon.

 

Again cocaine-laced green beans are intentionally satirical. Cocaine in coca-cola was also used due to its addictive nature, not just the jolt. No, society didn't collapse it EVOLVED. Had we done nothing about this trend assuredly things would have gotten much worse, that's why we DEMANDED these regulations. This is a conundrum sometimes used by the left as well. We tighten up security for terrorism. We reduce terrorism, and then the left says "Why are we tightening this security when we can prove there isn't a problem because there is less terrorism". Its nonsensical, we reduced the terrorist acts so much that the problem is seen as non-existent because of the efficiency of the solution, not the absence of the problem. I see much of this regulation in the same light. It fixes problems so well that we don't think we need them anymore. Don't be fooled.

 

Great Point. I fear anyone with too much power, I just feel that the pendulum has swung too far right. The real scary part to me is how hard it is to see this. Businesses by and large have not only been able to take on much power, but have been able to convince a large portion of people that it is actually the opposite case, and they have lost it. This is disturbing to me. Private interest funds political campaign. Private interest gets public officer to make a poor decision for his constituents that is a good decision for the private interest. At this point he either gains the good graces of the public officer or reduces confidence in government, either way he WINS.

 

The first nickel -may- pay for some real benefit on -some- of the regulations. The other $.20 pays for bureaucrats and bureaucratic growth, graft benefit for government's true constituency. For a majority of hyperregulation today, the whole $.25 pays for bureaucrats and the public does not benefit in the least. As a country, we spent trillions of dollars on security regulations pre Enron that greatly burden the capital markets. Some few of them are good and reasonable. How much damage do all those costly regulations prevent? Did they prevent Enron? Did they prevent LTCM? The leftist blames "deregulation" for bad outcomes that the government is actually responsible for because the leftist doesn't understand business, let alone regulations, enough to realize that the "deregulation" boogeyman they rely on was actually a mere 5-10% reduction in regulation, like trimming back a gigantic bush a few inches and then claiming the bush has been pruned to the ground.

Distortion noted. No one is talking about changing employees into independent contractors, and this almost never occurs unless a specific employee states the intention to go out on their own, represent other clients, while continuing to represent the prior employer also. I can't imagine you honestly misread my post that badly, so attribute the distortion as intentional on your part. The issue is that the IRS wants as many workers classified as employees because they are then subject to withholding and employment hyperregulation. In furtherance of that goal, they adminstratively define "employee" extremely and unrealisitically broadly. Their purpose is to inflict that bad, overbroad definition on business as much as possible.

No. Well-settled theories of agency law dictate that independent contractors attach liability to employers based on respondeat superior in the same way actual employees do. Once more you distort towards an inaccuracy as opposed to dealing with what was actually posted.

You obviously know -nothing- about it, yet act like you do. It isn't the cost of drafting and copying the documents alone that is onerous, but having to constantly account and measure all the policies put in place towards uniformity of application. The logistics and file-keeping for even a few employees can make for a fulltime job. Don't have those policies and keep those records? well that's worse than not having them at all, far far worse. Let's say there is a drug-testing policy. It will be expensive on the front end to administer, and must be done uniformly and periodically or the next time you try to fire someone high at work? instant lawsuit. If you -don't- have a drug testing policy, then guess who's going to try to claim ADA protection when you try to fire them? Legit, quality employees -leave- and go elsewhere when you can't keep pill poppers and high people out. Bad for morale.

Aren't you the poster who has another thread running about how you are on welfare? It's infinitely plain that you don't have to deal with "this" or any other issue small business owners face, and are pure out and out trolling this board.

 

Read that entire thread, and then get back to me. Especially posts #70 and #76 on pages 7 and 8.

 

I agree that there is graft also involved in the premium, again I can accept it, although I would agree it would be nice to try to reduce THIS part of the premium not the underlying regulation. I disagree that the regulation not stopping Enron is proof of your point. Just because regulation is not 100% fool proof doesn't mean its worthless. In fact if you think these businesses would naturally comply to them, then what is the added cost other than oversight? If you think ANYONE (including government) would adhere to non-existent regulations without oversight, I don't believe you to be that naive. As far as your 5-10% reduction claim, I'm OK with that, but letting corporate lawyers decide which 5-10% is absurd. They'd just shave the most important part of a regulation, create a giant loophole that made the regulation powerless, and then when it busted, tell us all how that showed regulations were bad and we needed to trim more. HA HA HA, I'll pass. In fact, that's their job as corporate lawyers, if they weren't trying to do that, the market would replace them with someone who would.

What's more distorting. Me claiming that this sort of regulation dodging exists, or you claiming that it doesn't. I apologize if I misrepresented your point, but this doesn't make my point without merit, no matter how strongly you think so.

You touch on something here that I am not in the know about, I'll look into it and respond later. Thanks for bringing this up, I'm not so attached to my ideas to refuse new information, try to meet me halfway on this.

Agreed. Let's make this legislation better through public discourse rather than relying on party rhetoric. I have a feeling this rhetoric is funded by people who don't have the same objectives.

 

I looked into this respondeat superior a bit more, and your very black and white portrayal of this in your quote is definitely the lawyer coming out in you. It would be more true to say that "Well-settled theories of agency law dictate that independent contractors CAN attach liability to employers based on respondeat superior in the same way actual employees do" Instead of employment being a "given" in the equation (as it normally is) independent contractor's give their company an added buffer to lawsuits (that you must love to take advantage of, what with it being your job and all), as the victim must first prove that there was some level of supervision on the part of the company. A company can sign a contract for work done with you, sub-contract that out to someone else, and as long as they don't directly supervise the work done, claim no liability. This is a far cry from your blanket sentence. On the good side, this definitely makes me believe you are a corporate attorney, but on the bad side, it lets me know that you are on the take for things of this sort. I never trust people to be honest about things which may hurt them, yourself not abstained.

It reminds me of that show I hate called Ghost Hunters. These people are paid lots of money to "find" ghosts. They only get paid if people watch the show. People only watch the show if they "find" ghosts. They "find" LOTS of ghosts. go figure.