Government Regulation

[mame]

OK, I see your point. We need to pay government to restrict our liberties.

If you were to ask people out on the street if they would rather have the "liberty" of running the risk of food poisoning everytime they eat at a food cart vs. peace of mind that the cart is regulated and safe - they would pick the peace of mind. No one wants to have to worry about what places are safe to eat at, so the entity charged with representing the people(government) responds by taking that responsibility as it's own. That's not really too unreasonable IMO.

You all for little girls needing $500 permits just to sell lemonade in front of their home too?

of course not. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples you can think of as well that are equally egregious and that I would not support but that still doesn't change the facts; Regulation isn't having a major economic impact on our economy as a whole... Removing regulation would not create a boom because regulation is not holding back any significant growth. So the broader argument that "regulation is the problem" isn't really accurate.

You ever eat at the burrito cart?

Yes, I have. I ate there a lot in the late morning - early afternoon (11-1ish) and never got sick but plenty of people - including my roommate - did... At the time, I poked fun at him because he blamed being sick on "those dirty Mexicans" when I had eaten there plenty of times without issues, but when they closed down and we found out why he was quick to say "I told you so". I guess I'd attribute my luck to eating earlier in the day - because the Ice was likely still fresh, mostly solid and cold (they were only open from like 10-5 or 10-6 depending on how early it got dark outside).

 

[MuyLocoNC]

All this talk about hamburgers and burritos is making me hungry as hell.

 

[canndo]

Are you trying to tell me that food safety is impossible without paying for a permit? I have been cooking food for me and my family for many decades now, never had a permit. No one has died yet. No rats in my kitchen, i pour the grease right down the fucking drain!!! Into the public sewer, I put urine and feces in there too, and i do it all on purpose.

Not impossible, I just want to know that someone is overseeing these places. You cook for how many again? 4? 6? Who do you think winds up paying for your pouring grease in the sewer? DO you respect the commons - I.E. the other people around you?

 

[Dan Kone]

While health code is not an absolute necessity (One should look into these things themselves if they are worried about it),

Oh come on. We should be able to have safe food without inspecting the kitchen personally.

if they are going to require the process there shouldn't be more than one permit ever. The whole point of all of those hoops is to keep people out of the industry therefore increasing the power that companies like Mcdonald's, BK, Sonic, and Wendy's hold over the market.

This I agree with.

IMO it's that way because these companies are the ones pushing for these regulations. The more expensive they make the process, the less competition they'll have.

 

[Dan Kone]

Are you trying to tell me that food safety is impossible without paying for a permit? I have been cooking food for me and my family for many decades now, never had a permit. No one has died yet. No rats in my kitchen, i pour the grease right down the fucking drain!!! Into the public sewer, I put urine and feces in there too, and i do it all on purpose.

Yes. We need a permit process to insure food safety. That's nice that you can personally make food safely. That doesn't mean everyone else will. I want ALL the food I eat to be safe, not just the food made by you.

 

[canndo]

You folks are still missing the point, the safety of the food is certainly a concern but the preservation and management of the commons is what is affected when there is no regulation.

 

[NoDrama]

Yes. We need a permit process to insure food safety. That's nice that you can personally make food safely. That doesn't mean everyone else will. I want ALL the food I eat to be safe, not just the food made by you.

Permits don't ensure food safety, they only give it the illusion. I bet those sellers of all the damned spinach that killed those people and made thousands sick had a permit. How much you wanna bet that those 6 people that died from eating at Jack in the Box ate at a restaurant that had a permit? I could find literally thousands upon thousands of "permit" owning food places that served bad food.

Permits ensure that only those who can give the locality a little bit of money will be allowed to compete with the others who have paid the "protection" money.

 

[NoDrama]

Who do you think winds up paying for your pouring grease in the sewer? DO you respect the commons - I.E. the other people around you?

I Pay for all of it, I live on a farm, got a big ole septic system, when i lived in town I paid for it also, the sewer charge was part of my water bill. You know what else i shoved down the drain when i lived in town? paper, shit and piss. I did it on purpose too, just to get back at all you regulation loving people.

 

[NLXSK1]

Depends on how it is handled.

I dont know all the rules for food preparation. I dont know what temperature food needs to be kept at to keep it safe or how long before I have to throw it out.

I have a realtor's license. I am required to get 24 hours of education every 2 years to maintain it. By completing this it ensures that I am current on what the laws of real estate are. Even so, I have a broker that examines every one of my documents because they are legally responsible to make sure I do my job correctly.

What I think is important is that food preparers know what the rules are and have basic training. If some libertarians dont want to have rules then the licensing and certification process is good enough for me. That way I have a CHOICE to eat at a licensed or unlicensed establishment.

Now, if someone's position is that anyone should be able to make any kind of food and leave it out for as long as they want and keep it at any temperature and the buyer had better beware... There probably wont be many buyer's.

Would you also like to hold the food preparer completely harmless if people get sick or die? I mean, they took the chance of buying the food. It was their responsibility to know whether what they were buying was safe or not. Right?

 

[Dan Kone]

You folks are still missing the point, the safety of the food is certainly a concern but the preservation and management of the commons is what is affected when there is no regulation.

While I agree with this, there is no reason there needs to be 57 permits which takes 2 years to complete. The only purpose of that is to discourage people from opening a small business. I think it's very likely the process works that way because the entrenched competition in the industry wants it that way so it's more difficult to compete.

I'm all for safety, preservation, all that good stuff. But I'm also for having a reasonable process that's friendly to people opening small businesses. In most cases opening a business is a pay to play process now. They don't take "bribes" so they've invented a process which produces the same result. You pay the city for all their permits, and it's very likely you end up paying the friends of these politicians for different services in order to do that. It's an expensive time consuming process which benefits politicians, politicians friends, and big companies at the expense of small business owners.

I don't support "regulation" nor do I support "deregulation". I support sanity and fair competition. In many cases both regulation and deregulation are for the benefit of major corporations and politicians only. There is a lot of scamming and rigging the system involved here. Many regulations aren't designed to keep us safe or preserve the commons, they are there only to present obstacles. But then when people demand we remove regulations to fix this, the only regulations that get removed are the necessary ones that keep us protected from these big corporations and small businesses end up even worse off.

But that's why I like this thread. It's specific. The OP has found a specific situation where regulation has gone wrong. He's identified a problem that needs to be fixed. In that situation I support deregulation 100%. The reverse is true too. There are specific things that need to be regulated that are not. In those cases I support regulation 100%.

Don't fall into the trap of being pro-regulation or pro-deregulation. Sometimes regulations are necessary. Sometimes deregulation is necessary. Always being pro-regulation or pro-deregulation is bullshit. It's a concept invented by politicians so they can get support for manipulating the system at the benefit of major corporations. You've got to look at each situation individually. Generalizing on this subject only benefits the ultra-wealthy and multinational corporations.

 

[canndo]

I have yet to see any proof of this assertion that it takes 2 years and 57 permits to open a fast food place. I am pro-protection of the commons.

 

[NLXSK1]

I have yet to see any proof of this assertion that it takes 2 years and 57 permits to open a fast food place.

I didnt realize that I was required to prove anything. I said that I heard a politician use this factoid on TV. I have not embellished it, it took me back to hear it.

I have yet to see any proof from you that it takes less than this number and time to accomplish the act of starting a burger stand in California.

 

[Dan Kone]

Permits don't ensure food safety, they only give it the illusion. I bet those sellers of all the damned spinach that killed those people and made thousands sick had a permit. How much you wanna bet that those 6 people that died from eating at Jack in the Box ate at a restaurant that had a permit? I could find literally thousands upon thousands of "permit" owning food places that served bad food.

You make a valid point, but you're drawing a flawed conclusion IMO. If the food safety permit process isn't working, then that's a reason to reform it to make it work better. It's not a good reason to ignore food safety.

Permits ensure that only those who can give the locality a little bit of money will be allowed to compete with the others who have paid the "protection" money.

I agree. The permit process especially on the local and state level primarily exists to line the pockets of cities, politicians, their friends, and to give large companies an unfair advantage.

The process should be reformed to make it easier for local businesses to compete.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have permits. It just means we shouldn't have unnecessary permits.

 

[NLXSK1]

So, do you believe that people should be able to call themselves doctors without a license? That policemen should not need training but be qualified because they own a pistol?

How far do you think we should go to remove this permit system?

 

[Dan Kone]

I have yet to see any proof of this assertion that it takes 2 years and 57 permits to open a fast food place. I am pro-protection of the commons.

Do you support things like $50k studies on parking in order to get a zoning permit to open a business in a commercially zoned building?

I know someone who owns a building in an all commercially zoned area. She was close to losing the building to foreclosure. Someone wanted to rent the building and put in a health center. In order to do that she needed 1 parking spot for every 100sq ft. When that building was constructed the laws were different and you only needed 1 parking spot for every 150sq ft. There is no shortage what so ever in on street parking. But the use permit was denied because the parking lot wasn't big enough.

The only way around it was for them to pay the city $50k for an impact study on parking/traffic. And even if they payed for the study, it came with no promises that the results would come back in their favor. The city could just keep the money and still deny them. It really doesn't cost $50k to have someone from the zoning department to drive out there and see there is obviously no parking problem in the area. It was just a scam. The company who does these impact studies holds fundraisers for local politicians on a regular basis. This isn't about parking or traffic, this is about pay-to-play politics. It's about making sure everyone gets paid.

Not all regulations are there for the benefit of the people. A lot of them are just there under the disguise of public benefit but there real purpose is to make sure people get paid.

My point being both regulation and deregulation can be used to public benefit or to abuse the public. The devil is in the details.

 

[RyanTheRhino]

bout 10 years ago a friend of mine in the know, told me to open a new refinery, paperwork would take approx. 12 years...peace

well that's because paper factories smells like shit.. they would need to have a county council meeting to vote about it.

Edit: oh its not a paper refinery but anyways it would still need to be voted on.

 

[Dan Kone]

So, do you believe that people should be able to call themselves doctors without a license? That policemen should not need training but be qualified because they own a pistol?

How far do you think we should go to remove this permit system?

You're asking the right questions IMO.

We should review the entire permit process on a case by case basis and then just use common sense. Obviously we want police to be trained and tested before permitting them to carry a gun. But it obviously doesn't take 2 year and who knows how much money to inspect a restaurant. It should cost about $100 bucks and be a matter of sending an inspector down to the building. That should take 1 day, not 2 years.

 

[canndo]

I didnt realize that I was required to prove anything. I said that I heard a politician use this factoid on TV. I have not embellished it, it took me back to hear it.

I have yet to see any proof from you that it takes less than this number and time to accomplish the act of starting a burger stand in California.

You don't really think a politician's factoid is sound do you? I needn't have to prove a negative NLX.

 

[Dan Kone]

I didnt realize that I was required to prove anything. I said that I heard a politician use this factoid on TV. I have not embellished it, it took me back to hear it.

I have yet to see any proof from you that it takes less than this number and time to accomplish the act of starting a burger stand in California.

I couldn't find the story you were talking about, but I did find some confirmation that it is factually accurate.

http://pacbiztimes.com/2011/09/30/editorial-politicians-and-economists-agree-make-building-easier/

It takes two years to permit a new fast-food restaurant in California, he said, adding that according to CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder, the same process in Texas takes just a few months

 

[canndo]

Do you support things like $50k studies on parking in order to get a zoning permit to open a business in a commercially zoned building?

I know someone who owns a building in an all commercially zoned area. She was close to losing the building to foreclosure. Someone wanted to rent the building and put in a health center. In order to do that she needed 1 parking spot for every 100sq ft. When that building was constructed the laws were different and you only needed 1 parking spot for every 150sq ft. There is no shortage what so ever in on street parking. But the use permit was denied because the parking lot wasn't big enough.

The only way around it was for them to pay the city $50k for an impact study on parking/traffic. And even if they payed for the study, it came with no promises that the results would come back in their favor. The city could just keep the money and still deny them. It really doesn't cost $50k to have someone from the zoning department to drive out there and see there is obviously no parking problem in the area. It was just a scam. The company who does these impact studies holds fundraisers for local politicians on a regular basis. This isn't about parking or traffic, this is about pay-to-play politics. It's about making sure everyone gets paid.

Not all regulations are there for the benefit of the people. A lot of them are just there under the disguise of public benefit but there real purpose is to make sure people get paid.

My point being both regulation and deregulation can be used to public benefit or to abuse the public. The devil is in the details.

So the city performs impact studies? I have only been involved in private studies being performed at the municipalities behest. On the one hand, we agree that needless regulation causes needless difficulties and slows commerce - however, being that the instances mentioned here are all local, there would either have to be a national (i.e. federal) anti regulation regulation or we would simply have to deal with the problem locality by locality. One is far from acceptable and the other unlikely.