Unbelievable government regulations

[Ego]

But she was very cute and forthright so she gets away with it.

[Chad]

But she was very cute and forthright so she gets away with it.

Hiding things in the open is always the best.

I'm sure the cuteness helped.

http://www.businessinsider.com/attracti ... ful-2012-9

[Sclass]

I just got out of training (ugh!) put on by our police community multi-family crime prevention officer. She was proud to say that if an owner of an apartment complex fails to enforce community rules and his/her tenants commit crimes, the officer will go to the property with code-enforcement and write up a ton of violations. The goal, she said, is to file a lien to collect the fines and then execute on it, forcing a sale to a more responsible owner. I was surprised by her candor and thought of this thread.

Funny how this stuff creeps away in city council meetings. My town has a code about as thick as the white pages of a major city. We have a code enforcement officer who hands out fines in our neighborhood over tree trimming and construction without permits. I found out he comes over whenever one neighbor calls in. The neighbor is on the town website regularly checking to see if that little pothole you filled on your driveway had a permit. I found out the hard way I cannot replace a single shingle on my roof myself (I'm not a roofing contractor and I cannot obtain a permit). I also need a permit to replace a faucet according to the book...the permit has a $75 filing fee. Yeppers, things have crept out of control. My fault for not wasting my Friday night at town hall voting against all this crappolla. Ideally it is great to live in a democracy but being there to speak up is sometimes difficult.

It feeds on itself too. The city makes the codes that drive permitting revenue. The code enforcement team is six people according to the town website. I have only met the pseudo cop with the citation book.

As for SimpleLife's bill, I feel your pain. I went to college in the People's Republic of Berkeley and I didn't sign up for water service or gas/electricity for three months as a sophomore. The meter reader came in and said my meter was spinning like a propeller and I needed to sign up and start paying. I did. No payment of prior use. Maybe it was a Bezerkely thing.

My advice pay it and move on. Its overhead (I'm guessing this is on a rental you own). You don't want to become one of the people you hate on all the time here just so you can suck off the system.

I've solved my home improvement nazi problem by not doing anything to the outside of my house. I keep it just below the beauty cops radar.

[Chad]

This is one of the reasons I'm in favor of zeroing out regulations and laws every....say 20 years? Maybe have a system were you need something like 75% of the legislators/elected officials to pass a law to make it permanent, which would be kind of like a constitutional amendment. Then for a law/regulation, which would be automatically wiped away after 20 years, it only takes 51% of the legislators/elected officials.

This kind of removes some of the bureaucratic inertia. The effort required to make laws/regulations permanent would mean that only the valuable ones would be kept or reintroduced and it would take the law makers ZERO effort to get rid of a law.

Obviously, this isn't perfect, but it would probably be better than what we have.

[jacob]

The way the system is [being] set up is that the legislative branch creates a multitude of laws to ensure that everybody is always in violation of something (speeding, changing a faucet, ...). Then if anyone in power wants to go after someone all they need to do is to show up/pull over and prosecute. This transfers power from the judicial branch to the executive branch.

It's a clever way to "tweak" the separation of powers. Having a law for everything, taking it to its logical extreme (which we're approaching), effectively means having no law at all because justice becomes a matter of discretionary enforcement decisions.

[RealPerson]

+1

The explosion in rules and regs also affects businesses. There are so many new rules coming out that it is becoming nearly impossible to comply with all of them. You can pay outside companies/people to help you comply, which increases cost and thus prices. Or, with so much pricing pressure on small business, it reduces profitability. The sad thing is that these rules don't seem to provide any benefit for involved parties, whether they be employees or customers. It is just "stuff". Jacob is entirely right that the explosion of laws and rules creates a situation of prosecutorial discretion that can be aimed at anyone. So everyone becomes a potential target. All the more reason to become FIRE and fly under the radar screen. I always thought that all these new rules were just created by bureaucrats needing to justify their paycheck, but I am beginning to wonder if there is a more sinister purpose. The land of the free is becoming less free.

[George the original one]

I always thought that all these new rules were just created by bureaucrats needing to justify their paycheck, but I am beginning to wonder if there is a more sinister purpose. The land of the free is becoming less free.

Sinister? No. Often it's just a matter of someone wanting to put their "stamp" on the laws of the land. As political parties become entrenched in dogma, there's a trail of pawn trading, but never a checkmate that finishes the game. Since the game will never be finished, there are a lot of unintended consequences because the plays are all centered on capturing pawns.

[RealPerson]

Sinister? No. Often it's just a matter of someone wanting to put their "stamp" on the laws of the land. As political parties become entrenched in dogma, there's a trail of pawn trading, but never a checkmate that finishes the game. Since the game will never be finished, there are a lot of unintended consequences because the plays are all centered on capturing pawns.

To me, making an innocent person into a pawn with a target on their back is sinister. It may all be part of a political game, but in the end it is regular people who get the short of the stick. Politics is a nasty contact sport. Political operatives know what they are getting into. It's the innocent bystanders becoming victims of the game that is the disturbing part. The intent my not be sinister, but the end result is.

[Ego]

I believe there are some sinister elements involved. Larger organizations can spread the cost of a lot of petty regulations across a larger customer base. Small mom-and-pop shops have to cover it all themselves. This creates barriers to entry for the would-be low-cost entrepreneur that favor big entrenched players, so the bigger guys encourage the regulation. Typically they call it professionalization and say it is good for the industry as a whole.

[Dragline]

I just got out of training (ugh!) put on by our police community multi-family crime prevention officer. She was proud to say that if an owner of an apartment complex fails to enforce community rules and his/her tenants commit crimes, the officer will go to the property with code-enforcement and write up a ton of violations. The goal, she said, is to file a lien to collect the fines and then execute on it, forcing a sale to a more responsible owner. I was surprised by her candor and thought of this thread.

Funny how this stuff creeps away in city council meetings. My town has a code about as thick as the white pages of a major city. We have a code enforcement officer who hands out fines in our neighborhood over tree trimming and construction without permits. I found out he comes over whenever one neighbor calls in. The neighbor is on the town website regularly checking to see if that little pothole you filled on your driveway had a permit.

According to "The Sociopath Next Door" (Stout), that neighbor is likely to be one. Not a violent one, but someone who takes pleasure in looking for ways to punish people. Would be confirmed if said neighbor frequently looks for sympathy or pity. Somebody to be avoided for sure.

[jacob]

Aside from sinister moves by individual agents, it's also an inherent systemic problem.

Think of the regulatory system as the brain of the organization which is supported by the body which is worked to gather energy. In the beginning, growing the size of the brain is beneficial because it has a positive ROI. More regulations create more wealth. This increase in wealth requires a bigger brain to administrate. This increases the cost of regulation. At some point the cost of regulation is growing faster than the increase in wealth. This is the crossover point where the ROI of increasing further regulation is 0%.

There are two design problems.

1) Overshoot because there's a lag between further regulations and decreasing wealth due to the cost of those regulations so the organization becomes less profitable. [The brain might even attempt to compensate for such a lag with even further regulation. The business cycle vs the central bank is a good metaphor for this.]
2) A tradition or choice never to reduce the number of regulations, e.g. English law in which "regulations" grow with each case since previous judicial interpretations become part of the law.

Design problems are supremely hard to overcome because most people [inside the box] are blissfully unaware of them.

It is equally hard to design a system without inherent design problems. Separation of powers has worked for hundreds of years, however it's coming against its limits.

[chenda]

First world problems...

[jacob]

Arbitrary prosecution/corruption is more like third world problems.

[George the original one]

When who you know is more important than what you know.

[Dragline]

These discussions of bureaucracies always remind me of Kafka's "The Trial".

[tylerrr]

In my state, apparently if the previous home owner didn't pay their utility bill, the state will force you to pay it otherwise they will file a lien on your house.

So the responsible person get's the shaft, at the hands of our so called elected representatives, at the threat of losing their house, while the deabeat is free and clear.

I'm really starting to think I might just be better off quitting my job and gettting on the government dole. Every time I turn around, responsibility is punished while being lazy and stupid is rewarded many times over.

Go to college, get a good job, climb the corporate ladder putting in long hours and putting up with BS. Only to pay for the free rent, food, health care, and phones of those who don't. WTF?!?

Idiocracy is alive and well...unfortunately.

and yet most members of this forum support the Party that makes most of these laws(and is continuing to make more as we speak), and gets millions in donations from The Trial Lawyers Associations for elections.

Sorry to keep bringing up facts, but it's just true. The truth really pisses people off, you know?

[Chad]

In my state, apparently if the previous home owner didn't pay their utility bill, the state will force you to pay it otherwise they will file a lien on your house.

So the responsible person get's the shaft, at the hands of our so called elected representatives, at the threat of losing their house, while the deabeat is free and clear.

I'm really starting to think I might just be better off quitting my job and gettting on the government dole. Every time I turn around, responsibility is punished while being lazy and stupid is rewarded many times over.

Go to college, get a good job, climb the corporate ladder putting in long hours and putting up with BS. Only to pay for the free rent, food, health care, and phones of those who don't. WTF?!?

Idiocracy is alive and well...unfortunately.

and yet most members of this forum support the Party that makes most of these laws(and is continuing to make more as we speak), and gets millions in donations from The Trial Lawyers Associations for elections.

Sorry to keep bringing up facts, but it's just true. The truth really pisses people off, you know?

It's not really all that difficult to understand. Most of us aren't extremists, when it comes to government. We think there is a place for good regulation, laws, and programs. Of course, you can go too far either way. We obviously have gone too far with some of our laws and regulations (such as some those mentioned above), but then pulled back too far on others (such as Glass-Steagall and NASA). The idea that any single ideology has answers for problems as complex as those created by society is kind of odd.

[GandK]

The idea that any single ideology has answers for problems as complex as those created by society is kind of odd.

+100. And the tighter that people cling to those ideologies, the fewer options they have for solving those complex problems. If your position has no room for compromise, you can't give ground on the smaller issues to make headway on the ones you see as big. People paint themselves into ideological corners and then scratch their heads and wonder why no headway is being made in government. It's not because their elected officials are not standing strong, it's because they are.

[Chad]

"Odd" really wasn't the word I was looking for. "Unproductive" might be better.

[Dragline]

and yet most members of this forum support the Party that makes most of these laws(and is continuing to make more as we speak), and gets millions in donations from The Trial Lawyers Associations for elections.

Sorry to keep bringing up facts, but it's just true. The truth really pisses people off, you know?

Except it appears that you may be having some trouble with your own factual research, or perhaps are looking at secondary source material that may not be accurate. The principal policy position of the Trial Lawyers largest association, the American Association for Justice (formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association) is to oppose any new federal laws that would serve to pre-empt certain state, local and common laws. See the second item on this page: https://www.justice.org/membership/advocacy

The alternative would be to have a new over-arching federal system of tort laws administered at the federal level and remove this part of the law entirely from local courts, similar to the federal employment law scheme or federal health care act in effect.

I've taken from your rhetoric that you oppose all new federal regulations of anybody about anything. If that is your position, you agree with the Trial Lawyers on this issue.

Truth of the matter is, the major political parties either decry government action or champion it depending upon the issue and desires of their donors, and there is no consistency on government action to be had (foolish or otherwise). Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say.

And the mission of most successful lobbying organizations, regardless of political affiliation, is simply to prevent any new laws in their subject areas from being passed, and to scream at their donors about "loss of freedom" whenever something is proposed. The Trial Lawyers and the NRA actually have a lot in common in this regard.