Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Licensure and Labor Unions: Two Sides of the Same Coin
As states increasingly move towards limiting labor union power through Right to Work laws, governments are finding other ways to restrict supply and inflate prices, by increasing occupational licensure requirements. Now, one might wonder why governments are motivated to do this, when it manifestly results in worse outcomes for consumers? It is not pure mean-spiritedness (although that undoubtedly plays some role), but the fact that they are barraged with misinformation from big-money trade groups who claim that without these requirements, the consumers will be endangered.
Of course, this is nonsense. Doctors don’t make money by killing all their patients. Chefs don’t make money by poisoning their patrons. It is in the businessman’s best interest to do a good job and to be honest about it. In our modern age of information, it is very difficult for a swindler to do well without being found out. A couple of bad reviews on a consumer information site and the would be crook is sunk. Meanwhile, millions of hard working, industrious individuals are prevented from practicing their trade by restrictions that are often insurmountable.
The effects of this are two-fold. One, those who are locked out of the labor market are regulated into poverty and dependence, forced to subsist on the public dole instead of becoming productive members of society. Two, incumbents are protected from competition, resulting in higher prices and lower quality for the consumer, not to mention less choice.
It should be noted that both the market power resulting from labor unions and that resulting from licensure requirements require government intervention to work. Labor unions operate under the fiction that they are a voluntary gathering of individuals to collectively bargain with employers. If this were true, I would have no problem with them, as their power would be limited to that achieved through voluntary exchange. In reality, however, they rely on a large number of coercive laws that prevent employers from exercising their rights to run their businesses as they choose. I have been critical of Right to Work laws for replacing one set of bad government regulations with another bad government regulation that restricts the rights of employers to contract. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Right to Work represents an improvement on the status quo, although absolute freedom would be preferable to both systems.
EPA Chief Threatens To Go After Republicans Who Question Secret Agency Science
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy has issued a warning to Republicans who continue to question the integrity of the agency’s scientific data: we’re coming for you.
McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a “small but vocal group of critics” who are arguing the EPA is using “secret science” to push costly clean air regulations.
“Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science — but it’s not really about EPA science or secrets. It’s about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society,” McCarthy said, according to Politico.
“It’s about claiming that research is secret if researchers protect confidential personal health data from those who are not qualified to analyze it — and won’t agree to protect it,” she added. “If EPA is being accused of secret science because we rely on real scientists to conduct research, and independent scientists to peer review it, and scientists who’ve spent a lifetime studying the science to reproduce it — then so be it.”Republicans Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas have led the charge on pressing the EPA to make publicly available the scientific data behind its clean air regulations. McCarthy promised she would make such data publicly available during her confirmation process last year. Now her refusal to cough up the data has angered Republicans.
“EPA’s leadership is willfully ignoring the big picture and defending EPA’s practices of using science that is, in fact, secret due to the refusal of the agency to share the underlying data with Congress and the American public,” said Vitter.
“We’re not asking, and we’ve never asked, for personal health information, and it is inexcusable for EPA to justify billions of dollars of economically significant regulations on science that is kept hidden from independent reanalysis and congressional oversight,” Vitter added.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/28/epa-chief-promises-to-go-after-republicans-who-question-agency-science/#ixzz30Ew88ujm
Monday, April 28, 2014
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
Blackmailers Don't Shoot has: Rule 5 Linkfest
The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: Ricochet
Florida House passes bill to allow children to be protected by guns in schools
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Unfortunately the bill may be stalled in the senate by Democrat enablers.Florida Democrats who are protected by people carrying guns are arguing against protecting children in schools. Apparently Democrats want the shooter to have plenty of time to carry out the act of cowardice against purposely defenseless and undefended children.
Why do Democrats want children to get killed? Why do Democrats want to create gun free kill zones for all these crazed leftist and democrat shooters? Are Democrats so deranged as to WANT children to get killed in order to further their unconstitutional slobbering designs on taking our rights away?
It is hard to understand extreme leftists who grow more extreme every day along with their slavish leftist media enablers.
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