4 ms·

> For the first time in a trade agreement there are provisions to help small businesses without the resources of big corporations to deal with trade barriers an

> For the first time in a trade agreement there are provisions to help small businesses without the resources of big corporations to deal with trade barriers and red tape. A committee would be created to assist smaller companies. That's awesome. But, if you have that much of a problem, why form a committee to help smaller companies- why not just make it easier for everyone? And what good will a committee really do? Why not just say, "We promise to make trading with foreign entities just that- you won't have to deal with the U.S. government and foreign government at all."

criddell 11y ago
Whenever I see "committee" given as the solution to a problem, my mind instantly goes to Gilliam's "Brazil".
copsarebastards 11y ago
> But, if you have that much of a problem, why form a committee to help smaller companies- why not just make it easier for everyone? How long do we have to try this idiotic idea before we recognize that "making it easier for everyone" only helps big corporations?
- lighthawk 11y ago
  That's not what I was saying. I was saying that government shouldn't impose so much red tape that small companies need a committee assigned to help them, when it is not known whether that committee will necessarily get them through the red tape as efficiently as a big company that has more resources available.
  - copsarebastards 11y ago
    You can't just talk as if "red tape" is this thing that is just hanging around getting in people's way. Red tape usually exists for one of 2 reasons: 1. Corporations have done something bad that wasn't illegal, so regulation was created to prevent them from doing that. 2. Corporate interests have paid off politicians to make laws that favor them. Ideally we could reduce red tape by cutting out only the laws in category 2, but in practice, corporate interests cut both ways: they screw things up when creating laws and they screw things up when removing laws. Moves to reduce regulation almost always cause more harm than good, letting big corporations go back to doing bad things they were doing before. History is rife with this kind of deregulation: the repeal of Glass-Steagall, for example. No move to deregulate that I know of has resulted in a better situation for small business. Deregulatory movements are almost always driven by monopolistic large corporations.

criddell 11y ago

Whenever I see "committee" given as the solution to a problem, my mind instantly goes to Gilliam's "Brazil".

copsarebastards 11y ago

> But, if you have that much of a problem, why form a committee to help smaller companies- why not just make it easier for everyone? How long do we have to try this idiotic idea before we recognize that "making it easier for everyone" only helps big corporations?

lighthawk 11y ago
That's not what I was saying. I was saying that government shouldn't impose so much red tape that small companies need a committee assigned to help them, when it is not known whether that committee will necessarily get them through the red tape as efficiently as a big company that has more resources available.
- copsarebastards 11y ago
  You can't just talk as if "red tape" is this thing that is just hanging around getting in people's way. Red tape usually exists for one of 2 reasons: 1. Corporations have done something bad that wasn't illegal, so regulation was created to prevent them from doing that. 2. Corporate interests have paid off politicians to make laws that favor them. Ideally we could reduce red tape by cutting out only the laws in category 2, but in practice, corporate interests cut both ways: they screw things up when creating laws and they screw things up when removing laws. Moves to reduce regulation almost always cause more harm than good, letting big corporations go back to doing bad things they were doing before. History is rife with this kind of deregulation: the repeal of Glass-Steagall, for example. No move to deregulate that I know of has resulted in a better situation for small business. Deregulatory movements are almost always driven by monopolistic large corporations.