A brief brief and beef about beef

If we ever needed proof that regulation is a tool of big business and not for the protection of consumers, the horse / beef fiasco proves it.

A massive infrastructure dedicated to making sure that our food is good and safe has failed, despite the regulation applied specifically to large corporate suppliers and supermarkets. Every day seems to show another crack in the edifice.

And what are consumers doing? Well, those who can afford it have always used butchers. Parsimonious types are now migrating to butchers where the food chain is known by actual people and not by regulation.

I strongly contend that people who actually know the food chain and the history of the food being bought are far more trusted than any ticked boxes or paperwork that has been completed. Regulation is no substitute for knowledge.

But no, for the average statist, there is no substitute for more regulation, no matter that the failure of regulation is evident to all, the answer is always more regulation.

Why does big business oppose leaving the EU?

Pro-EU interests always trot out the large corporates who do not, under any circumstances, want to leave the EU.

Why is it that large corporates don't want to leave the EU? Surely they'd be better off without the burdensome yoke of EU regulations, free to trade in a simpler, less complex manner?

It's the same reason that these all-powerful corporations, with their massive clout from employing former ministers and civil servants seem to have incredible influence in shaping regulation, but somehow never manage to get rid of it.

It's the same reason that the mounds of regulation they face are massive, pointless box-ticking wastes of time.

All this regulation is a massive barrier to entry to new competition. Large corporates have already got the infrastructure to comply with all this, they are already able to cope with it all and they've adjusted their business processes to comply. If we left the EU tomorrow, there would be a massive reduction in the regulatory mountain any new competitor would have to climb and the incumbents would be left facing a much tougher competitive landscape.

And large corporates fear competition, they don't fear regulation, especially not when they can shape it to make it relatively easy for themselves to comply with.

Regulation may always start out as being for the protection of the little man, but it always ends up being for the protection of the regulated company.

Too much government

I found this article via twitter. An absolutely fascinating read on why government consultations tend to generate so little useful response and why the whole concept of getting people affected by legislation to comment on it is largely pointless and self-defeating.

If I was a cynic, I'd almost say it was designed to be a self-defeating object.

Isn't it ironic that the same people who demand clarity from business in their dealings with the public commit the most egregious crimes against plain speaking themselves?

We don't need more regulation. I don't believe we need ANY regulation, but if we must have regulation it should be reasonable to expect that you do not need to spend 20 years in government to be to decipher the rules that apply to you.

The futility of financial regulation

Via the excellent and amazing Gresham College.

Ballsy!

Blatant economic protectionism

Via the Institute for Justice.

Streets of Dreams

Regulation... again

So, regulation is ALWAYS for the protection of the consumer, isn't it? It never benefits the vested interests.

Suing the US government

I hope they win.

A spiffing example of why regulations are bad

Here's a thing:

California is having massive budget problems. On an unrelated note, a $578,000,000 school is unveiled in Los Angeles. On another completely unrelated note, the district has a shortfall of $640,000,000. The school comes complete with murals, marble memorial, swimming pool, and public park. This will be the most expensive public school in American history.

Dude, WTF? More than half a billion fucking dollars on a fucking school? Does it have gold plated shitters or what?

And given that the district has an enormous shortfall, was that the best fucking use of taxpayer funding? Of course it fucking wasn't. But guess what? This fucking abortion was a direct consequence of cast-iron regulations created for situation A, that completely fuck up situation B:

By law, these funds could not be used to fund teacher salaries or to back fill budget shortfalls currently being experienced by the District and its [sic] meets the Board goal of relieving overcrowding in all our schools.

So, they couldn't use the funds for a useful purpose because they came with some arbitrary strings attached, and the district has a regulatory requirement to reduce overcrowding. So they pissed out over half a billion US on a fucking school, instead.

Jesus wept.

Bring out your dead!

The first coalition fuckup

I'm behind the curve on this on, Obsidian and MummyLongLegs and probably hundreds of others have already pointed out how they will benefit HUGELY from this new bit of nanny-statism.

I just wanted to remind my reader who thinks that regulation is a good thing that this is just another case where the incumbent gets a nice fat competitive advantage for already being in the game. Plus they get to up profits in exchange.

And MummyLongLegs highlighted another particularly egregious outcome:

Where this plan is very clever is that some people out there still go to pubs. However, if minimum pricing is introduced that will stop, simply because it is more expensive to go to the pub before you have even bought a drink. Taxi's and babysitters can put between £20 and £40 on a night out before you have even left the house. Ramp up the price of a pint or a glass of vino and it just won't be worth the cost. So even more people will flock to Tesco. Bingo. Huge profits and and increase in customers, almost a captive audience in fact. Tesco will have achieved where the smoking ban failed.

Hurrah for that health-benefiting regulation! Hurrah!

Regulation: it never achieves the benefits you want, it always benefits the incumbent(s) and it always has side-effects you never wanted or intended.

So far, this government has talked a load of warm fuzzy things, but the first thing they're rushing to implement is yet another "fuck the taxpayer in the arse without lubrication" measure.

Utter wankstain cunts.

PS I've got a nice shiny fiver here that says the HoP bars will be exempt from this. Watch and see.