Maggie's Farm

Fascism: I love this quote: (parentheses is my contribution): FauxScienceSlayer Moa
There are only two systems of governance: either you have property rights (to use and dispose of your property as you see fit), free speech and rule by informed consent....OR YOU DON'T. There is virtually NO difference between communism, fascism, marxism, nazism and socialism....they are all REBRANDED FEUDALISM.

For an educated take, see Dr. Jonathan Steinberg’s (Annenberg Chair, U Penn) " European History and European Lives, 1715 to 1914". Sorry, for it's length, but it is not difficult, if you are interested in history.

Remember the chemical spill in West Virginia????Sheesh, the EPA has been in existence since the 70s, and in all this time no one put together that it is not a good idea to put a chemical facility next to a water treatment plant, let alone next to a river that is a source of drinking water. What is the point of having an EPA?
EPA’s 2013 budget was $7.9B and they employ 16,000 (this is just Feds), more than 300 per state. It just goes to show you that Regulation is not a magic bullet. Where was the focus on the big picture, as opposed to obscure unlikely event scenarios, pondered by wonks, who use it to justify their jobs and existence, and incidentally collect big bucks from the chumps. After West Virginia, I suppose that they had to get off their keisters, huffing and puffing, and pontificating over an event that eluded them. They do have the time and resources to persecute some schmuck who built a duck pond on his property and send a SWAT team to threaten some property owner who removed rusty barrels and garbage from his property and trimmed back vegetation.
U.S. regulatory costs exceed the total value added by the entire U.S. manufacturing sector; it suffocates small businesses in favor of the crony capitalists and suppresses investment in the US. Looking at the chemical spill in West Virginia, 80,000 ( not including state and local regulations) pages apparently wasn’t sufficient or the bureaucrats couldn’t enforce the regulations they had. I’ve got an idea, let’s add more incomprehensible, duplicative, contradictory, and counter-intuitive regulations which leads to prosecutorial gamesmanship and overkill. Everyone must be a criminal; and we need SWAT teams to enforce regulations.
This is why DC is a BOOM town while Main Street and the rest of the country slide backwards.

I am not against all government, but I am against ALL government ALL the time. Statists seem to not grasp the concept of diminishing returns; I refer you to Daniel Ikenson: “Economics teaches the theory of diminishing marginal returns….." Let’s apply this concept to regulation, say pollution abatement. “In 1970, when the EPA began to regulate activities that were presumed to have adverse impacts on environmental quality, there was great scope for air and water quality improvement. There was a lot of low-hanging fruit in those days. But, today, after the most obvious and affordable abatement measures have already been adopted and the associated benefits have been reaped, the marginal cost of the next increment of improvement is greater and the marginal benefit from that effort is smaller.”……… AKA, bang for the buck. Now that the low hanging fruit is gone regulators have to increasingly resort to bizarre, obscure efforts to justify themselves and their jobs. These efforts cost a mint but make minimal difference.
Regulation is inherently tied to the size of government and this is the heart of the conundrum. How do you balance regulation to protect the public’s interest (health and safety) and not strangle innovation, investment, and growth? How do you keep it manageable, how do you avoid a patchwork of conflicting, complex, and counter intuitive regulations from multiple jurisdictions?