Deregulation Explained Through Wal-Mart and Target

I haven't written a blog in many months but the Regulation Vs Deregulation debate has inspired me once more.  There is much debate going on in sound bites from both sides of the political aisle, but this is not really an issue that can be fully comprehended in snippits of 15 seconds or less.

Pretend for a moment that this debate was not going on in Washington but in the board room of Wal-Mart and that Target was the government of another country.  Also pretend that you (the customer) are a business.

You need to go shopping and both Wal-Mart and Target carry what you need.  The price is nearly identical but you go to Wal-Mart for the sake of convenience.  You arrive and get your cart but to your surprise you are handed a survey to fill out as you shop.  You are also informed that this is not optional but a requirement to complete checkout.  You comply but find that check-out takes much longer.  The next time you go you find that in order to control traffic in the aisles, arrows have been painted on the floor.  Following them is not optional.  You follow the arrows, filling out the survey as you go, walking much farther than you intended and find that the lines are backed up so far that you can't even see the register.  Frustrated you wait because guards are there to hand out tickets should you abandon your cart and shop elsewhere.  When you finally arrive at the register you discover that the cost of everything has risen to cover the cost of enforcing the new rules so that Wal-Mart is now much more expensive than Target. 

On your next shopping trip where do you go?

In the Wal-Mart executive offices, the board scrambles to find a way to get back their market share.  Their brilliant idea is to lay down more rules for their shoppers.  They also wage a marketing campaign stating that they are for order and protection of their customers through these new rules -- because the shoppers havent been behaving right you know -- while Target offers no protection and just wants a free for all with shoppers brawling in the aisles.

Would you continue to shop at Wal-Mart?  If not, how can you not expect a business to seek other alternatives?

The Arrogance of Power

I've been trying to read the cap and trade bill, but it is so large that when I tried to pull it up it crashed my computer. That alone tells me that it is not a good piece of legislation. But I finally did find the text of an early version, this one only 936 pages long. Therefore, it is missing all of the additions used to buy the votes of the dissenting Congressmen, many of which accepted that bribe.

So why is the bill so long? Is it because it sets the goals for reductions of carbon emissions and the creation of alternative clean energy? No, it's because it attempts to lay out exactly how this is to be achieved. Congress, in their immutable arrogance, has decided that they are the only people who know how to make this happen. Not the engineers. Not the scientists. Not those who have been researching and experimenting for years. But a bunch of lawyers, most of which have never had a job in the private sector.

It would be one thing if the legislation set goals for reduction of emissions and a deadline to achieve them, and then stated a company would be fined if they don't meet them, but instead it levies a heavy tax on them based on where they are now. The belief being that the heavy taxes will incentivize them to reduce their emissions. But the problem is, that these companies will not have the capital to expend on research and innovation for their energy usage, because they are sending that money to the federal government. So the method by which Congress hopes to achieve their goal, will actually serve to defeat their goal. And is the money collected from these taxes going to fund energy research? Maybe some of it. But a lot of it will go to fund the new government agencies and organizations set up to administer this convoluted new plan.

As I read more and more of the bill, one thing became quite clear. The bill sets up organizations to determine further regulations. In nearly every section is an area dedicated to researching what additional regulations will be required. This bill, like so many that have come out of Congress in the last 50 years, is a power grab. They are setting up more government agencies with unelected authority to slap the American people and American companies with more regulations.

They even have a section in this bill to use the American taxpayer dollars to explore carbon emissions in other countries, and they give themselves the right to tell those other countries what to do. This one has me scratching my head just a bit.

So when it comes right down to it, Waxman-Markey is not an energy bill, it is legislation to set up government agencies to explore regulation. Again, believing that only the federal government can determine what needs to be done and how.

If the only true wisdom is knowing that you don't know everything, then our Congress is sadly lacking in wisdom.

Think I'm kidding? Think I'm exaggerating? Think I'm just being angry, bitchy and confrontational? Then please read the bill yourself. I encourage you to do so. We must be informed on what Congress is doing in order to hold them accountable. Our form of government cannot work if we the people abdicate our power over our elected officials.