The TransPecos wrote:Khadgar wrote:Here's a fun game. Link me 10 anti-business regulations Obama has passed. Him being such a fucking anti-business communist this ought be easy. Feel free. Obamacare only counts as one.
OK. Let's go. Remember this is about current and rising costs and resultant moving, not whether you think these are good, bad, or indifferent regulations or mandates.
1. Obamacare. You're cheating by calling Obamacare just one because it both phased and contains multiple mandates.
2. CFL lamps are all made in China because of both cheap labor and no evironmental restictions on use of mercury.
3. GM is moving to China. That's a huge market and there are few regulations on auto building activities. GM isn't alone, think everything from toys to diesel engines. (Oh yeah, GM is Government Motors Corp., right?)
4. EPA regulatory processes (e.g. exhaust scrubbing, ozone, etc.) are chaotic and in utter confusion. The electricity generating industry simply doesn't know where to turn. The proposed clean air standards can't be achieved where I live simply because the wind blows (or Texas sucks, take your choice).
5. General bureaucratic delays in rule making. In the pipeline are over 4000 rules that will hit in the next few years, assumimg thet things go even reasonably smoothly. Companies of any size have complete departments that attempt to stay current on regulatory issues.
6. Tier 3 fuel standands will cost the economy about 8 billion dollars. Tier 4 diesel emission requirements will have a lesser but significant effect.
Looking to the future, let's pick some under review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. (Google OIRA for more details.)
7. New refinery standards, Estimated impact is 460 million dollars. When was the last refinery built in the USA?
8. Vehicle rear view cameras. Estimated impact is 2.7 billion dollars. What is the benefit that is worth that sum of money?
9. Refrigerator Energy Standards. Estimated impact is 875 million dollars.
10. Crystalline silica. Estimated impact is 55 billion dollars. Multiple building stand vacant in and are and economic burden to my city because they contain asbestos and no one will touch them. Silica is everywhere!
We could go on but what's the point. You know and I know that there is a manufacturing flight from the USA. Where possible, service industries (e.g. call centers) have and are fleeing. The equivalent economic action is about to take place in those service and other industries that can't flee.
You just have to face up to the fact and look at the causes. Look at economic growth, look at imports from China, India, and other countries. Look at our national debt. Look at our foreign creditors. They all point to the same fundamental fact; the USA is not the best place, and often is not even a good place, to do business and one main reason is rising regulatory issues and mandated costs
Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:06 am