Category Archives: Regulations

Run, Lois, Run!

Oh that pesky 1st Amendment with its annoyances like free press… Maybe now that Eric “Turn The Blind Eye” Holder is gone, we’ll have some actual prosecution for high crimes & misdemeanors, corruption, and racketeering. And this traitorous wench should be first in line for the grand jury, just in front of John “The Slime” Corzine, Hank “Bailout” Paulson, and Timmy “TaxMan” Geithner.

“I don’t want her in my house!” … classic!

WMT “Rolls Back” Healthcare Benes

Roll it on back!

Don’t say there was no warning…

Here it is… major company (WMT) bailing at providing medical benes to those who work less than 30 hrs/wk…

Per Denninger:

Obama could have pushed hard for an end to the monopoly and price-fixing ways within our medical system in 2009 and actually accomplished something. The legal framework to end that crap already exists. Instead he got on his knees and paid tribute with political fellatio aimed at the entire medical and insurance industry, and you, dear citizen, are being lined up to pay for it.

So lube up America and assume the position, because here it comes again.

I agree. But… again, it’s not totally Dear Leader. For those GOP faithful out there,

    the House could have put a stop to this at any time by de-funding it

. But they didn’t. They placed re-election “not rocking the boat” over principle. And then we wonder why there’s a Tea Party, Libertarian Party, etc…

In any event, the end is 30k less workers with benefits and going onto the state dole to get such, and all that much more fodder to yap for single payer socialism. Starting to realize that both “sides” work for the same master yet?

Who is John Galt?

NFL: The National Political Correctness League

The NFL Has Become A Circus Of Political Correctness

I remember when it used to just be about football… say, last year… but yes sadly aside from scandals, more & more penalties for hitting the precious receivers or quarterbacks a little too hard or in the wrong place is taking its toll on the game. I for one will probably end up watching more & more college football, where it basically still is about the game as it was meant to be. At least until the PC police descend on college too.

The Tea Party / Occupy Intersection

Been imagining this graphic in my mind for a long time now. Both are right on their diagnoses but Occupy is wrong on its solutions. If corporations have too much power, giving government even MOAR power does nothing to stop that – in fact it makes it worse – because government and corporations are in bed together. The solution is a return to a truOccupy / Tea Party Intersectionly free market where corporations are allowed to fail, and government is limited and held accountable to any cronyism like picking winners and losers, providing bailouts & “gift loans”, no bid contracts to Halliburton/Monsanto and so forth. Power needs to go back where it belongs – to the people – not the government nor corporations, and that is done via restoring the free market, not the crony market we currently have run by central bankers who work for the 0.01%.

Clean Air Regulations: Thoughts on Practicality

Smoking Tailpipe
Ready to be super-regulated?

The state of California today passed sweeping new automobile regulations today in an attempt to reduce pollutants & greenhouse gases.  These regulations include:

  1. a requirement that one in seven of the new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle.
  2. a mandate to have 1.4 million electric and hybrid vehicles on state roads by 2025.
  3. a mandate for a 75 percent reduction in smog-forming pollutants by 2025.
  4. and a mandate for 34 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over roughly the same time.

States surely do have the right to regulate commerce & emissions within their own borders, no argument there.  Let’s also ignore the whole greenhouse gas emission debate – it’s really not relevant to the discussion here.  What is interesting is the practicality of these “mandates”, particularly the first one, and how they could feasibly be implemented.

If there truly would be a requirement that one in seven new cars sold in the state be a non-traditional vehicle, this would imply that dealers must be constantly tracking car sales by type.  It would mean that customers potentially could go into their dealer, ready to put down a check for a new traditional gas/diesel vehicle, and be told by the dealer “I’m sorry, we’ll put you in the queue for that car, but until another electric vehicle is sold first, we can’t actually close the sale.”

Sound ridiculous?  Well, that’s what the regulation actually says: 1 in 7 MUST be electric or other zero-emission vehicles.  The only way to truly guarantee that is to have a real-time data system implemented that allows the sale of six traditional vehicles for every electric vehicle sold, and blocks subsequent traditional vehicle sales until the next electric vehicle is sold.  I wonder how much such a system will cost to develop, maintain, and utilize?

I have a feeling that the subsequent mandates #2-#4 are nothing more than assumed consequences of what will happen given that the sales ratio (mandate #1) is successful.  Would those numbers really work out in such a case?  Have they factored in that pollution is still generated by electric cars, just at the power plant rather than from the tailpipe?  One must assume so.

Wouldn’t it be far easier, far less intrusive, and far more friendly to individual liberty to simply adjust existing taxes & fees to achieve nearly the same goal?  Certainly there is an annual registration fee (I imagine quite high) to register a car in California.  Why couldn’t the same objective of promoting electric/no-emission vehicles be met far more easily by simply increasing the annual registration fee on traditional vehicles and/or decreasing the annual registration fee on electric/no-emission vehicles?

Regulators often get overly full of themselves, believing they can wield immense power to directly implement any desired result without giving thought to the consequences and impracticality of doing so.  One of the best features of our republic is having 50 laboratories of democracy each conducting their own experiments, and I for one cannot wait to see the results of this one.