All you did was take the money required to follow the regulation away from the company and on to the government.
The cost is actually reduced, as the government worker doing the testing, is performing a specialized task, repeatedly, as opposed to, the engineer at the company, who normally spends his day engineering production machinery, doesn't have to also perform the work of a sample collector, a compliance officer, and a corporate planner. "Cost" in this sense, refers not to the payer, but the cost, in terms of units of effort, required to perform the activity, regardless of who records it on the balance sheet.
You just hand wave and posit that the government would have less paperwork / bureaucracy to deal with than the company. You show no precedent or example.
It's not hand waving, its specialization. Whether or not the government has less paperwork, is inconsequential, as the same amount of paperwork can be completed in less time by a person who specializes in said paperwork, as opposed to a person who specializes in something else, but also happens to fill out said paperwork occasionally. Also, the computer software / data collection systems for preparing the reports, would exist in 1 place, at the government office, as opposed to, at 1,000,000 places, the manufacturing facilities.
As for precedent and example, ever hear of Henry Ford ?
You just want some The Spirit of the West to walk by, figure out the Chromium level in the water (and ignore historical data, upstream data and measurement issues), call in Chuck Norris and have the offending factory kicked into low Earth orbit.
If you are finished being absurd, please re-read the thread. Therein you will find my comment about data driven policies. Truth is self evident, no matter how absurd a response conclusions may elicit.
Grow up and stop smoking all that weed.
Embrace libertarian philosophies and concepts, stop your emotionally driven attacks on persons and property that stem from prior assumptions, and tax and regulate domestic weed production for the responsible benefit of all, so that I can start smoking it again.
I will provide a scenario for you, in order to potentially further your understanding.
Imagine the government has a law, for manufacturing companies, that says "No more than 50 ppb of chromium may be discharged and/or found in the environment for any manufacturing facility."
Given the nature of how the government operates in some environments, the enforcement of this law, could easily include volumes of procedures like "Company must hire outside contractor. Company must document collection methods. Company must guarantee validity of samples collected. Company must generate a 100 page report. Company must... etc, etc etc." This can be a significant drain on productivity.
Another method to solve the problem, would be, for the government to hire an employee, to collect the samples, and follow the rules, and send it to the government lab, where another employee tests the sample, and confirms compliance. If the company is found to be non-compliant, production is immediately halted. Given the specialized nature of the task, this would free the company to focus on manufacturing, rather than complying with endless amounts of red tape, while still insuring the sample is collected, tested, and the environment monitored.
This lets the government do its job, and the company do its job, as opposed to, the government constantly telling the company what its job is.
A "deregulatory action" would eliminate the complicated, inefficient, scenario A, and replace it with a simplified, streamlined scenario B, at no expense to the environment. The "big bad evil" corporations could no longer game the system, because, the government employee would be collecting the samples, and complying with the government regulations.
So, now you have an example of how a deregulatory action can in fact be constructed to be beneficial.
The opposite situation could also occur, where the consequence of the deregulatory action results in the manufacturers no longer being forced to comply with environmental regulations, and noone collects samples, and tests the soil, which would result in pollution, due to the fact that noone is looking for it, or aware of it, and the new incentive to generate it.
So, rather than clinging to the absolutes of youth, you can now hopefully understand how it is the nature of the specific deregulatory action being proposed and its consequences that are important, and not the fact that deregulation is occuring in and of itself.
Well, it may in fact make many tasks easier, while at the same time, make other tasks harder. I was thinking of industrial processes that rely on gravity. The machines that lift dirt / soil rely on gravity, the conveyors that transport it, the machines that process it, etc. Gravity is important in continuous processing. This is not to say lowered gravity makes continuous processing impossible, just that, the vast majority of human knowledge is geared towards processing materials on earth, and that to process materials on the moon, the tools have to be engineered specifically for the lunar environment, and it is this complication that makes the stated time line all but impossible, bar a concerted Manhattan Project like mandate.
I'd like to add, that any "ideological philosophy" taken to an extreme, that causes people to behave in a manner that ignores scientific data regarding the consequences of their actions, is dangerous. That includes conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, humanism, etc.
I'm a firm believer in data driven government policies, not belief systems that ignore reality in order to support prior assumptions.
"Proprietarian libertarian philosophies define liberty as non-aggression, or the state in which no person or group aggresses against any other person or group, where aggression is defined as the violation of private property."
There is also a non-proprietarian type of libertarianism, and the difference between the 2 is important. In your above scenario, ablating the world of mammals, pollution with BPA, hormone interference, and the environment, etc. would be an aggression against people and property.
Of course "some" regulations are necessary, while "other" regulations are not, while still other regulations are wasteful, unnecessary, and harmful.
Claiming that "all deregulation is bad" without regard to the details of a specific deregulatory action, or that libertarians want absolute freedom, even if it results in the destruction of the environment and the means by which the planet is able to support life, is ridiculous.
I think you are equating the term "deregulation" with the concept of allowing companies absolute freedom. Deregulation means no such thing. From wikipedia:
"Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.[1] Deregulation does not mean elimination of laws against fraud or property rights but eliminating or reducing government control of how business is done, thereby moving toward a more laissez-faire, free market."
Note where it states "deregulation does not mean elimination of laws against fraud or property rights"
Environmental laws need not be eliminated in order to deregulate an industry. What gets eliminated is unnecessary government interference and process/price mandates, not necessary government oversight and enforcement of said environmental regulations.
Anyone who has watched a mine, and a refinery, or even seen pictures of them, is qualified to question the validity of the time frame here. All that industrial process activity, in an environment with no atmosphere to speak of and reduced gravity ?
Kudos for thinking big and bold, and the value of whatever solutions do emerge... but operating by 2020 ?
+1
I second this idea. EULAs arent going to go away... but given their increasing ubiquity it would be nice if they were standardized, like the preprepared forms the county hands out to comply with standard procedures like evictions, small claims cases, etc.
This would ease the burden of dealing with EULAs while still protecting the property rights of producers, and use rights of consumers. The EULA would move from the obfuscated custom party-party contract to a standard disclosure / disclaimer.
None of this is about my own personal happiness, and as I have stated elsewhere, the police eviction of the protesters is not about political speech. It is about property laws that they are violating in order to deliver their message. While you may think this is a free speech issue, it is in fact property law that allows the police action thus far to be justified. If the protesters bought a small plot of land, say an acre, they could say whatever they want, all day long. When they decided to squat on someone elses land, they violated property laws, and empowered the property owners to take action, and the police on their behalf, regardless of what it is they are saying.
As for your reference to Kent state, you may in fact begin to see something similar if the protesters escalate their civil disobedience in a violent direction. One of them was on the news today saying something similar to "soon you'll see molitov cocktails." Are you going to claim they are innocent as they burn down New York as promised, violating the rights of the property owners and the public in the process ?,br>
Say what you want, you are protected. Do what you want, without regard for others, and noone cares what you are saying while doing it, and expect a reaction.
I feel the need to clarify my use of the word "community" here. I mean, "all who benefit from". A brief example, before I move on.
Suppose there is oil in Alaska, within 50 miles of a small village inhabited by Alaskan natives. Arguably, the existence of the village, is necessary, for the oil industry to gain access to the oil. It's somewhat of a chicken and egg problem. "There's lots of oil in the ground, but we can't get it, because there is no support infrastructure nearby."
Certainly an investment in the infrastructure, would allow for the extraction of the oil. We all benefit from the supply of oil ( although some posters, using a computer, made entirely thanks to oil, would pretend they dont use oil ). This is where the slippery slope starts.
The oil industry says "hey uncle same, give $20,000,000 to the village to build infrastructure so we can get that oil cheap enough to utilize it." Uncle Sam says "yeah, we need more oil, okay, here is your check." The oil company gets the oil at $3.00 a gallon, and sells it for $4.00 making a profit of $1 ( very simplified assumption). Without the $20 million subsidy, the oil would have cost $4.50 a gallon to obtain, at a loss of $0.50 a gallon, making it not possible for the oil company to extract it.
Ding ding ding ding ding. The oil industry should be looking for low hanging fruit. You can't get it at a profit, fine, go look for oil somewhere else that is profitable, and when the price of oil rises eventually due to scarcity, the project will pay for itself.
If instead you tax everyone, to get the oil, that is too expensive to get, you make it harder for grandma to buy groceries unnecessarily, because she is paying extra taxes to support an effort that isn't profitable ( efficient ) given the current environment. It is almost the equivalent of passing a law, that requires grandma, to drive at least 100 miles to buy groceries, when there is a store right down the street.
Im sure theres details I got wrong here, but it's meant to be a simple assumption. Reality is far more complex.
My point isnt that the airports aren't useful in any way, my point is that if they are useful to the community, then the community should pay for it. If it is too expensive for the community to pay for, then economically speaking, that should be a red flag that it isn't really useful, as it is not producing enough return to support itself.
$5 million is closer to the actual effort required to solve the problem, at least for the software, and personally, as a software engineer, I believe the problem to be solvable. Maybe tack on a few more million(s) if you want reliable hardware to scan in the shreds with minimal human effort.
That said, the whole "Hey guys, we're having a contest!" strategy has paid off in the past, the X-prize and Lindburgs flight being prime examples. Hell, Googles "Summer of Code" seems to work out for them nicely. They get a cheap, motivated, enthusiastic labor force.
Being older, wiser, and less motivated, when I hear "contest" I immediately think "I'm busy already, do it yourself."
Business expenses are already deductible, unless of course, that expense is in the form of a tax, levied upon people, to support the business of another, at which point the person incurring the expense is screwed. This is why the "real cost" is important.
I don't at all disagree with you, however, I just wanted to point out, that the farm subsidies, originally, were intended to solve a problem of malnutrition, because at the time they were implemented, people in the US were in fact undernourished. Sadly, it has since been co-opted by politicians buying votes from the agricultural industry and is as bloated now as the general population is.
Rational economic actors would reduce the subsidies, as the general population became more and more obese, but, as you and I both are aware, the actors are not at all rational.
While an intelligent elaboration of the situation you provide, it is wholely superfluous, as, when was the last time humanity participated in conflict when all parties were content ?
As for the magazine being Canadian based on subscription, or publication, my statement reflects the publishers, ie, the "creators" I spoke of, not the consumers and environment they are exploiting.
Now that a think about it, no. As a homeowner, my activities did not endanger my home from airplanes. It is the activity of the airline industry that endangers people and homes. Unless you want to argue that shelter is not required to support human life, but flying is.
That said, if I order something and the package is flown via airplane, then the shipping cost should reflect it.
You make a good point about the security of the people and buildings underneath the airplane. But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week so some senator can get his name on the place and his buddies can go hunting. There must be some rational, economic, middle ground.
"Perhaps they're backing down because of the cost - someone wants government spending to be less liberal (Ha!)"
This type of expense, could be conducted, at 0 cost to the taxpayers, if the airline customers were made to pay for it, instead of people flying from texas to orlando for $5, courtesy government subsidized transport, so that disney can post record profits.
Sucks that people who never fly, continually pay for those that do, via these subsidies.
That said, as a taxpayer, even tho I dont fly, I'm willing to pay for someone with a fancy college degree, to stick a radiation meter inside a scanner, perform a scan, use a cheap calculator to do some quick math, and type up a report. It's not rocket science and would cost all of $100 in the private sector. But of course, since the government is involved, it'll cost $10 million.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of what I, a nobody, thinks, the FBI and DHS disagree with you. Maybe you could call them and explain.
All you did was take the money required to follow the regulation away from the company and on to the government.
The cost is actually reduced, as the government worker doing the testing, is performing a specialized task, repeatedly, as opposed to, the engineer at the company, who normally spends his day engineering production machinery, doesn't have to also perform the work of a sample collector, a compliance officer, and a corporate planner. "Cost" in this sense, refers not to the payer, but the cost, in terms of units of effort, required to perform the activity, regardless of who records it on the balance sheet.
You just hand wave and posit that the government would have less paperwork / bureaucracy to deal with than the company. You show no precedent or example.
It's not hand waving, its specialization. Whether or not the government has less paperwork, is inconsequential, as the same amount of paperwork can be completed in less time by a person who specializes in said paperwork, as opposed to a person who specializes in something else, but also happens to fill out said paperwork occasionally. Also, the computer software / data collection systems for preparing the reports, would exist in 1 place, at the government office, as opposed to, at 1,000,000 places, the manufacturing facilities.
As for precedent and example, ever hear of Henry Ford ?
You just want some The Spirit of the West to walk by, figure out the Chromium level in the water (and ignore historical data, upstream data and measurement issues), call in Chuck Norris and have the offending factory kicked into low Earth orbit.
If you are finished being absurd, please re-read the thread. Therein you will find my comment about data driven policies. Truth is self evident, no matter how absurd a response conclusions may elicit.
Grow up and stop smoking all that weed.
Embrace libertarian philosophies and concepts, stop your emotionally driven attacks on persons and property that stem from prior assumptions, and tax and regulate domestic weed production for the responsible benefit of all, so that I can start smoking it again.
I will provide a scenario for you, in order to potentially further your understanding.
... etc, etc etc." This can be a significant drain on productivity.
Imagine the government has a law, for manufacturing companies, that says "No more than 50 ppb of chromium may be discharged and/or found in the environment for any manufacturing facility."
Given the nature of how the government operates in some environments, the enforcement of this law, could easily include volumes of procedures like "Company must hire outside contractor. Company must document collection methods. Company must guarantee validity of samples collected. Company must generate a 100 page report. Company must
Another method to solve the problem, would be, for the government to hire an employee, to collect the samples, and follow the rules, and send it to the government lab, where another employee tests the sample, and confirms compliance. If the company is found to be non-compliant, production is immediately halted. Given the specialized nature of the task, this would free the company to focus on manufacturing, rather than complying with endless amounts of red tape, while still insuring the sample is collected, tested, and the environment monitored.
This lets the government do its job, and the company do its job, as opposed to, the government constantly telling the company what its job is.
A "deregulatory action" would eliminate the complicated, inefficient, scenario A, and replace it with a simplified, streamlined scenario B, at no expense to the environment. The "big bad evil" corporations could no longer game the system, because, the government employee would be collecting the samples, and complying with the government regulations.
So, now you have an example of how a deregulatory action can in fact be constructed to be beneficial.
The opposite situation could also occur, where the consequence of the deregulatory action results in the manufacturers no longer being forced to comply with environmental regulations, and noone collects samples, and tests the soil, which would result in pollution, due to the fact that noone is looking for it, or aware of it, and the new incentive to generate it.
So, rather than clinging to the absolutes of youth, you can now hopefully understand how it is the nature of the specific deregulatory action being proposed and its consequences that are important, and not the fact that deregulation is occuring in and of itself.
Well, it may in fact make many tasks easier, while at the same time, make other tasks harder. I was thinking of industrial processes that rely on gravity. The machines that lift dirt / soil rely on gravity, the conveyors that transport it, the machines that process it, etc. Gravity is important in continuous processing. This is not to say lowered gravity makes continuous processing impossible, just that, the vast majority of human knowledge is geared towards processing materials on earth, and that to process materials on the moon, the tools have to be engineered specifically for the lunar environment, and it is this complication that makes the stated time line all but impossible, bar a concerted Manhattan Project like mandate.
I'd like to add, that any "ideological philosophy" taken to an extreme, that causes people to behave in a manner that ignores scientific data regarding the consequences of their actions, is dangerous. That includes conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, humanism, etc.
I'm a firm believer in data driven government policies, not belief systems that ignore reality in order to support prior assumptions.
"Proprietarian libertarian philosophies define liberty as non-aggression, or the state in which no person or group aggresses against any other person or group, where aggression is defined as the violation of private property."
There is also a non-proprietarian type of libertarianism, and the difference between the 2 is important. In your above scenario, ablating the world of mammals, pollution with BPA, hormone interference, and the environment, etc. would be an aggression against people and property.
Of course "some" regulations are necessary, while "other" regulations are not, while still other regulations are wasteful, unnecessary, and harmful.
Claiming that "all deregulation is bad" without regard to the details of a specific deregulatory action, or that libertarians want absolute freedom, even if it results in the destruction of the environment and the means by which the planet is able to support life, is ridiculous.
I think you are equating the term "deregulation" with the concept of allowing companies absolute freedom. Deregulation means no such thing. From wikipedia:
"Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.[1] Deregulation does not mean elimination of laws against fraud or property rights but eliminating or reducing government control of how business is done, thereby moving toward a more laissez-faire, free market."
Note where it states "deregulation does not mean elimination of laws against fraud or property rights"
Environmental laws need not be eliminated in order to deregulate an industry. What gets eliminated is unnecessary government interference and process/price mandates, not necessary government oversight and enforcement of said environmental regulations.
Libertarians don't advocate the destruction of the planet and the pollution of the environment. Nice try.
I haven't. But having walked around with my eyes open for a little while, this is one of the few blind predictions I'm willing to state boldly. ;)
Anyone who has watched a mine, and a refinery, or even seen pictures of them, is qualified to question the validity of the time frame here. All that industrial process activity, in an environment with no atmosphere to speak of and reduced gravity ?
... but operating by 2020 ?
Kudos for thinking big and bold, and the value of whatever solutions do emerge
Not gonna happen.
+1 I second this idea. EULAs arent going to go away ... but given their increasing ubiquity it would be nice if they were standardized, like the preprepared forms the county hands out to comply with standard procedures like evictions, small claims cases, etc.
This would ease the burden of dealing with EULAs while still protecting the property rights of producers, and use rights of consumers. The EULA would move from the obfuscated custom party-party contract to a standard disclosure / disclaimer.
aim and fire weapons with it ?
None of this is about my own personal happiness, and as I have stated elsewhere, the police eviction of the protesters is not about political speech. It is about property laws that they are violating in order to deliver their message. While you may think this is a free speech issue, it is in fact property law that allows the police action thus far to be justified. If the protesters bought a small plot of land, say an acre, they could say whatever they want, all day long. When they decided to squat on someone elses land, they violated property laws, and empowered the property owners to take action, and the police on their behalf, regardless of what it is they are saying.
As for your reference to Kent state, you may in fact begin to see something similar if the protesters escalate their civil disobedience in a violent direction. One of them was on the news today saying something similar to "soon you'll see molitov cocktails." Are you going to claim they are innocent as they burn down New York as promised, violating the rights of the property owners and the public in the process ?,br>
Say what you want, you are protected. Do what you want, without regard for others, and noone cares what you are saying while doing it, and expect a reaction.
I feel the need to clarify my use of the word "community" here. I mean, "all who benefit from". A brief example, before I move on.
Suppose there is oil in Alaska, within 50 miles of a small village inhabited by Alaskan natives. Arguably, the existence of the village, is necessary, for the oil industry to gain access to the oil. It's somewhat of a chicken and egg problem. "There's lots of oil in the ground, but we can't get it, because there is no support infrastructure nearby."
Certainly an investment in the infrastructure, would allow for the extraction of the oil. We all benefit from the supply of oil ( although some posters, using a computer, made entirely thanks to oil, would pretend they dont use oil ). This is where the slippery slope starts.
The oil industry says "hey uncle same, give $20,000,000 to the village to build infrastructure so we can get that oil cheap enough to utilize it." Uncle Sam says "yeah, we need more oil, okay, here is your check." The oil company gets the oil at $3.00 a gallon, and sells it for $4.00 making a profit of $1 ( very simplified assumption). Without the $20 million subsidy, the oil would have cost $4.50 a gallon to obtain, at a loss of $0.50 a gallon, making it not possible for the oil company to extract it.
Ding ding ding ding ding. The oil industry should be looking for low hanging fruit. You can't get it at a profit, fine, go look for oil somewhere else that is profitable, and when the price of oil rises eventually due to scarcity, the project will pay for itself.
If instead you tax everyone, to get the oil, that is too expensive to get, you make it harder for grandma to buy groceries unnecessarily, because she is paying extra taxes to support an effort that isn't profitable ( efficient ) given the current environment. It is almost the equivalent of passing a law, that requires grandma, to drive at least 100 miles to buy groceries, when there is a store right down the street.
Im sure theres details I got wrong here, but it's meant to be a simple assumption. Reality is far more complex.
My point isnt that the airports aren't useful in any way, my point is that if they are useful to the community, then the community should pay for it. If it is too expensive for the community to pay for, then economically speaking, that should be a red flag that it isn't really useful, as it is not producing enough return to support itself.
$5 million is closer to the actual effort required to solve the problem, at least for the software, and personally, as a software engineer, I believe the problem to be solvable. Maybe tack on a few more million(s) if you want reliable hardware to scan in the shreds with minimal human effort.
That said, the whole "Hey guys, we're having a contest!" strategy has paid off in the past, the X-prize and Lindburgs flight being prime examples. Hell, Googles "Summer of Code" seems to work out for them nicely. They get a cheap, motivated, enthusiastic labor force.
Being older, wiser, and less motivated, when I hear "contest" I immediately think "I'm busy already, do it yourself."
Business expenses are already deductible, unless of course, that expense is in the form of a tax, levied upon people, to support the business of another, at which point the person incurring the expense is screwed. This is why the "real cost" is important.
I am *sooooo* going to sue Nintendo for my tweenage drug abuse. ;)
I don't at all disagree with you, however, I just wanted to point out, that the farm subsidies, originally, were intended to solve a problem of malnutrition, because at the time they were implemented, people in the US were in fact undernourished. Sadly, it has since been co-opted by politicians buying votes from the agricultural industry and is as bloated now as the general population is.
Rational economic actors would reduce the subsidies, as the general population became more and more obese, but, as you and I both are aware, the actors are not at all rational.
While an intelligent elaboration of the situation you provide, it is wholely superfluous, as, when was the last time humanity participated in conflict when all parties were content ?
As for the magazine being Canadian based on subscription, or publication, my statement reflects the publishers, ie, the "creators" I spoke of, not the consumers and environment they are exploiting.
Now that a think about it, no. As a homeowner, my activities did not endanger my home from airplanes. It is the activity of the airline industry that endangers people and homes. Unless you want to argue that shelter is not required to support human life, but flying is.
That said, if I order something and the package is flown via airplane, then the shipping cost should reflect it.
You make a good point about the security of the people and buildings underneath the airplane. But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week so some senator can get his name on the place and his buddies can go hunting. There must be some rational, economic, middle ground.
The books were "abandoned" by the protesters voluntarily, as they were "evicted" from someone elses land.
Research abandoned property law. Has nothing to do with the bill of rights.
"Perhaps they're backing down because of the cost - someone wants government spending to be less liberal (Ha!)"
This type of expense, could be conducted, at 0 cost to the taxpayers, if the airline customers were made to pay for it, instead of people flying from texas to orlando for $5, courtesy government subsidized transport, so that disney can post record profits.
Sucks that people who never fly, continually pay for those that do, via these subsidies.
That said, as a taxpayer, even tho I dont fly, I'm willing to pay for someone with a fancy college degree, to stick a radiation meter inside a scanner, perform a scan, use a cheap calculator to do some quick math, and type up a report. It's not rocket science and would cost all of $100 in the private sector. But of course, since the government is involved, it'll cost $10 million.
Admittedly, I drifted off the main topic, but alas, I cannot take it back now, but only thank you for the personal attack.