“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.” ~Adam Smith
Companies can’t be trusted so they have to be regulated by the government, right? If left unchecked evil, greedy businesses will put employees and consumers in danger and cheat them out of their money. Okay, so who should regulate them? Who understands those industries well enough to know what needs to be regulated and how? Who better than the experts from those industries right? People from those industries that can’t be trusted. Wait, what?
Lobbying is the term used in Washington DC for legalized bribery. Lobbyists, typically the scum of the earth, or lawyers, whichever, wine and dine the regulatory officials with fine restaurants, parties with pretty girls, vacation junkets, contributions to their “Foundation,” and whatever else they can to buy the politician’s loyalty. Then the lobbyists write the regulatory bills that they want passed into law, which typically give them a competitive advantage or redistributes wealth to them directly. The politicians then get the bills passed in Congress and signed into law. How’s that democratic republic working out for you?
After a number of years as a government regulatory official, politicians then go to work for the industries they regulated. Who better to know who and how to bribe those in Washington than those from Washington that they used to bribe?
It’s called “the revolving door” when people continuously circle between industry and government regulatory positions. It’s just another government racket resulting in less freedom, higher prices, and millions for those industries and the politicians. The politicians make millions, the industries make billions, and the people are told that they are safer for it. Ever wonder how it is that over half the members of Congress are millionaires and became so since joining Congress?
But since industry has the politicians in their back pockets, there’s no real regulation of any consequence going on; it’s all just a well-conceived con. Whenever something happens that causes harm to an employee or a consumer even though there were already thousands of regulatory statutes, the politicians don’t blame it on their lying, conniving maleficence but rather on insufficient regulation—so the solution is more regulation. The answer to government failure is always more government. I don’t think “regulation” means what they think it means. Rinse and repeat.
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