Tag regulation

Google Hires a Gaggle of Lobbyists to Fight New Government Regulations

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

The enemy is within folks. When businesses have to first conjole the government before they can think about expansion and developement we are off the reservation. To think that a company even needs to hire one lobbying firm let alone 12 is a sad state of the American business climate. All these politicians want is a piece of the pie and they are seeking the highest bidder to pay to play so to speak. This has been going on under both GOP and Dem leadership and has to stop.

The whole lobbying scene gives new meaning to capital hill. Bring your capital to the hill and we will then decide if you can do business in America.

The biggest hurdle to job creation is the federal government. It is time to tame this shrew. What say you?

Amplify’d from www.politico.com
Google's headquarters is located in Mountain View, Calif. | AP Photo

A federal probe of Google’s search industry dominance has the company mobilizing in Washington: It announced Friday it would hire 12 new lobbying firms in a move that will grow its Beltway footprint, influence and balance sheet.

It will likely be a mix of new, outside Democratic and Republican pickups taking Google’s message to Congress, the FTC and beyond. Their chief goal is to explain Google’s business model, push back against antitrust affronts and further work on other issues affecting the company, including online privacy and copyright reform.

Debates are raging on Capitol Hill over potential new rules of the road for Web companies and online advertisers — and those conversations could have serious impact on Google’s bottom line. Meanwhile, congressional interest in reforming copyright laws and addressing Internet freedom also draw Google into the political fray.

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Gov. Regulation Fails to Regulate Bad Behavior

Allen Frederick 4 Comments

A View from the Nest

Random Ramblings from the Resident Raptor

Insight from the Journey across the Sky

Your rulers are rebels, friends with thieves. They all love bribes and run after gifts. They never defend orphans. They don’t notice the widows’ pleas. Isaiah 1:23 (GW)

South façade of the White House, the executive...

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All the talk coming out of Washington DC lately is about regulation. The refrain is to regulate Wall Street to avoid future melt downs of the market. Well this week we find out that the regulators who were supposed to be watching over the financial markets were too busy watching PORN to be paying attention to their regulatory responsibilities. They were looking at peep shows rather than looking over financial reports. Granted financial statements can be rather dull but according to one report some of these SEC officials were getting paid quite handsomely to do this job. And you know what I did not hear one peep out of OBAMA or his clan to cap these top officials salaries. I wonder if they still have their jobs?

Seventeen of the employees were “at a senior level,” earning salaries of up to $222,418.

What did the White House propose instead? You guessed it more regulation and more responsibility for the SEC. I wonder who they are going to hire to see that the work gets done? Who is going to be watching the regulators? The truth of the matter is had Goldman Sachs been allowed to fail we would not even be having this discussion. We the people said “no to bailouts”, but the government decided to bail them out anyway, and from the sounds of the new regulatory bill they plan to do so into the far distant future.

A hired hand isn’t a shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep. When he sees a wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and quickly runs away. So the wolf drags the sheep away and scatters the flock. The hired hand is concerned about what he’s going to get paid and not about the sheep. John 10:12-13 (GW)

The sound of the word REGULATION gives a sense of safety. It makes people think there are people paid to keep an eye on certain industries and practices to make sure they operate within the law. But it turns out that those who are paid to keep watch are watching something else. These are hired hands, employees paid to be there, they have no vested interest in the people nor the families they are supposed to be looking out for. They are merely getting paid to do a job and when something bad happens they are quick to push the blame elsewhere. They have no concern over the well being of someone living hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles away. The halls of the government are cold and hollow.

Take for example the recent WV mining accident to see how well Government Regulation worked out.

On April 5, 2010, the community of Montcoal, West Virginia was devastated when an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine took the lives of 29 men. Not only does the tragedy of Upper Big Branch demonstrate the inadequacy of regulations alone to protect vulnerable workers and their families, it highlights the vital importance of our nation’s civil justice system as a means of compensating victims and punishing those whose reckless conduct harms others.

According to the New York Times, “the mine had been cited for hundreds of violations over the last year, including many serious ones.”

Why then, did the mine continue to operate?

In order to avoid steep fines and delay the need for compliance, the Massey Energy Company fostered bureaucratic gridlock by contesting most of the Upper Big Branch mine’s safety violations. While regulatory officials at the Mine Safety and Health Administration

(MSHA) waded through stacks of appeal documents, hamstrung by weaknesses in the 1977 Mine Safety Act, the mine continued to operate unimpeded.

The very nature of bureaucracy is to generate paperwork. Remember a government large enough to regulate even the very air we breath is too large to operate efficiently and timely in any matter. The best you can hope for from any government agency is they will get around to it eventually. Eventually was too late for 29 miners in West Virginia.

What’s more, the mining industry (as with many other regulated industries) has long had a revolving door between the regulators and the regulated. The ranks of the regulators are often filled with folks who come out of the mining industry. Likewise, the industry provides opportunities for advancement for regulators who decide to leave government service. This calls into question the zeal with which some regulators carry out their duties. Does a regulator really want to get tough on the company that might provide him with his next job?

In other words we have the fox watching the hen house, and to make matters worse, the companies hire back these “foxes” so they have an insider on the payroll. This is actually a good idea if you want to scam the system, which is exactly what happens where there is too much government regulation. Companies find ways around the regulations which then renders the regulations mute.

Of course, regulatory regimes do nothing to compensate the victims or their families for the damages they suffer in such catastrophes. The fines that errant corporations pay for violating government regulations go to government, not the victims of those violations.

This perhaps is the biggest reason the government loves regulation, they are the ones benefiting by enforcement of the regulations. But as you can see the regulations do not hinder the operations of those who are being regulated, regulation therefore becomes nothing more than another tax. It is a “pay to play” program set up by the government, with the pretense of actually being watchdogs. In reality all they are doing is designing rules by which the companies can operate legally, thereby putting a stamp of legitimacy upon an otherwise illegitimate operation. And to justify their existence they pass more and more regulations, which require more oversight, and the perpetual motion machine never stops.

Why then was there a financial crisis on Wall Street? Was it due to Goldman Sachs and others not being properly regulated? No it was because they “paid to play” and the regulators looked the other way. Through massive lobbying efforts and large campaign contributions, lawmakers can be bought and paid for. Companies find it is cheaper to pay off the regulators than to actually comply with the regulations. Therefore the regulators and the companies form an unholy alliance, whereby the government agrees that they meet all regulatory standards, and the company operates with the governments approval, until someone dies. Or the markets crash, or an airplane falls out of the sky, or you fill in the blank.

Therefore the fault lies right at the feet of the government regulatory system. The next time you hear another politician say there is not enough regulation remember the families of the Upper Big Branch mining disaster, government regulation did absolutely nothing for them. Nor will it. You can not sue the federal government even though that is exactly where the buck should stop. If the Mine Safety and Health administration was doing their job then Upper Big Branch mine would have been shut down until they were in compliance. Government regulation cost 29 men their lives. How safe do you feel now?

It is better to depend on the Lord than to trust mortals. It is better to depend on the Lord than to trust influential people. Psalms 118:8-9 (GW)

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31 (BBE)

Along for the journey

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Capitalism: A Bull Market Concept

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

1Co 9 (GW) Moses’ Teachings say, “Never muzzle an ox when it is threshing grain.” God’s concern isn’t for oxen. 10 Isn’t he speaking entirely for our benefit? This was written for our benefit so that the person who plows or threshes should expect to receive a share of the crop. 1 Corinthians 9:9-10


This is the main force behind capitalism and the free market system of the United States. A man works expecting to get a return on that work. Companies produce products they hope to sell for a profit. Companies, nor individuals would long endure lengthy periods of non-reward. If a company continues to loose revenue in the course of doing business it would cease doing business. If an individual would be forced to continually work for less or nothing at all, it would not take long before that individual gives up and quits working.

Our economy works the same way. It will cease to operate if all profit is removed from the system through heavy taxation or over regulation. If the cost of doing business exceeds the reward of the same, then business will cease, production will dry up and there will be nothing more to tax or regulate. Therefore allow a workman to make a decent wage, allow companies to operate at a profit, do not MUZZLE the ox that is actually producing. After all if you stop production there will be nothing to take and give to anyone. If however you allow producers to produce there will be enough to not only feed the ox that is doing the work but others as well. Keep the ox happy and you live long and prosper. Bull markets are more favorable then bear markets wouldn’t you think?

Think about it next time you pull the lever for more government taxation, oversight, regulation and intervention.

Pay a man what he is worth and stop muzzling the ox that stamps out the grain. Heavy taxation only stifles the workman because he looses hope in a harvest and gives up. Redistribution of wealth robs a man of his willingness to produce. Taking his hard earned fields in order to give it to someone who has not labored is demoralizing. Heavy taxation upon what a man produces will only cause him to find ways to avoid the heavy taxation or completely give up the process altogether.

Government bailouts are not only non-constitutional I feel they are not even biblical. What say you?
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Cap and Trade: New global warming taxation

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

The Foundry » Blog Archive » Morning Bell: A Teaching Moment

Environmentalists and their allies in Congress are already conceding defeat on the Lieberman-Warner global warming legislation that will be debated this week in the Senate. The Washington Post reports that “even supporters of the complex, extensively negotiated 494-page bill say that there is little chance that it will win Senate approval.” Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told the Post: “In some ways, this is a dress rehearsal for next year.” Dorgan is correct. Because all three remaining presidential candidates support plans similar to Lieberman-Warner, this issue will be back in 2009. But that does not mean the Senate debate is irrelevant. It gives conservatives an invaluable opportunity to establish some truths about the Lieberman-Warner’s “cap-and-trade” policy.

“Cap and Trade” Is Really Just a Massive Tax Increase: One of the biggest accomplishments of environmental activists has been to sell “cap-and-trade” policies as a “free market” solution to global warming. Hence the New York Times can report with a straight face that Lieberman-Warner would create “one of the biggest markets in the world, estimated to be worth over $200 billion a year.” This makes it seem like Congress can, by the stroke of a pen, create $200 billion in new wealth for the American economy every year. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lieberman-Warner sets an arbitrary “cap” on total emissions the U.S. economy can produce and then auctions off (or gives away) “allowances” to businesses. In order to pay for these allowances, businesses would be forced to raise prices on consumers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that just a 15% cut in emissions would raise average household energy cots by almost $1,300 a year. So when the Times says a $200-billion-a-year market will be created, what is actually happening is that Congress is raising taxes on the American people by $200 billion a year.

“Cap and Trade” Is Government Control of the Economy: So what does Congress plan to do with the extra $200 billion a year? Will it pay down the deficit? Fix Social Security? Not a chance. Being the natural-born spenders that they are, lawmakers have already divvied up that money — Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) estimates her tax increase will raise $3.32 trillion by 2050 — among their favorite constituents. Liberals need votes from farm states so pecan growers in Georgia and wheat growers in Montana will get credits they can sell to businesses. Indian tribes who give campaign cash to liberals also are slated to get money as are lobsters in Sen. John Kerry’s Massachusetts. Steel and cement companies are set to receive $213 billion, utilities get $307 billion and oil companies get $34 billion.

The rest of the money goes to the Climate Change Credit Corp., a quasi-government entity that would operate outside the normal budgeting process. This five-member group would dole out trillions to anybody it wants under such vague guidelines as “relief” for low-income taxpayers, training for “green collar” jobs and “wildlife adaptation.” Worse, this new $200-billion-a-year “market” would need oversight, so the bill also creates a Carbon Market Efficiency Board that would have to regulate 85% of the entire U.S. economy.

“Cap and Trade” Does Not Help the Environment: And what does the American taxpayer get for all these massive tax increases and new regulation? If the bill works perfectly, its supporters claim it will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2050. First, there is no reason to think it will work at all. Europe instituted a similar policy in 2005, and so far it has been a complete disaster, raising energy prices on consumers while also failing to reduce emissions. Second, a 70% reduction in U.S. emissions by 2050 will do nothing to slow climate change thanks to the length of time it takes current emissions to dissipate and the fact that China and India will do nothing to reduce their emissions at the cost of their economic growth.

“Cap and Trade” Is a Jobs Killer: Proponents of capping carbon often claim the policy will create millions of new jobs. But if the policy is so great for an economy, then why aren’t China and India busy capping their carbon emissions? Because capping carbon means capping energy usage — and energy is needed for all economies. If carbon coal sequestration continues to be difficult to develop, then Lieberman-Warner will cost the U.S. economy $4.8 trillion and close to 1 million jobs by 2030.

Quick Hits:

* A National Center for Public Policy Research poll shows that 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
* Actually enforcing the law at the U.S. border, instead of catching and releasing illegal border crossers, has reduced border apprehensions by 20%.
* The Washington Post admits that Iraqi “government and army may be winning the war.”
* The Association of European Chambers of Commerce released a study showing that Europe’s invasive labor regulations have stuck Europe with an overall employment rate the U.S. attained by 1978.
* The Tax Foundation released a study showing that Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire are among the top 10 states hit hardest by Sen. Barack Obama’s promise to raise Social Security taxes.