Tuesday, March 11, 2014

To America's Embarrassment

John Stossel did his own little experiment. He tried to start two businesses, one in Hong Kong and the other in New York state. In Hong Kong, it took less than a day to complete all the requirements, while in New York state it took multiple months and I believe that he ultimately surrendered. If there's anybody out there who thinks that this level of red-tape is good for the economy, and that it somehow reduces income inequality in America, they're totally insane.

6 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

Regulatory requirements, redundancy , and yes sometimes insanity are symptoms of the growing fascism in America. A trend that has been supported by both political parties in varying degrees. Democrats, certainly at present, are the most fascistic with respect to regulatory controls

BB-Idaho said...

IMO, Stossel should have recognized the NY gravy train , unless
he was just making some sort of point.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Les, in some jurisdictions they actually have something called a "certificate of necessity" in which the prospective business has to prove that his or her services are needed and the authors of these policies are usually the existing businesses and their political cronies. Disgusting, huh?......BB, if Mr. Cuomo can improve the business climate in New York, bully for him. My suggestion would be to lighten up on some of these licensing requirements and not make it so damned expensive just to start a business (a half a million bucks just to start a cab company in NYC).

Les Carpenter said...

Taxes and regulatory control are, I think, different issues.

Eliminate taxes and the case can be made it makes increasing regulatory costs and controls easier for government. When the tax relief expires would be the real gotcha moment.

Government, IMNHO, does not get enough credit for sone if its nefarious activities. :-)

Just making a point BB-Idaho, playing devils advocate.

BB-Idaho said...

States and localities can jump through hoops to attract business.
Locally, a large, well-operated business was given space and quickly cleared-they built and were operating in less that a year. Concurrently, a small Mexican restaurant sought to build a new place and was entangled in red tape for three years. The problem with regs is
that although the intent is good
(sorry guys, no more concentrated
sulfuric acid into that trout
stream) is that the lawyer types
create a 'one size fits all' standardization. Believe me, as
a lab manager, I was caught between conflicting MILSPEC testing and EPA regs. The guv
scientists were willing to cut
slack, the guv lawyers were not.

Les Carpenter said...

I have no problems with regs that make sense BB-Idaho. EPA regs, like the example you sighted certainly falls under "makes sense" as everyone wants the trout they eat coming from pristine waters.

You're spot on with your lawyer observation. We all know the lions share of reps, senators, and their advisors are attorneys or have a legal background. Did I mention many presidents came from lawyerly backgrounds?

Ought to tell us something don'tcha think?