2 ms·

>where regulation is somehow a thing that happens all by itself Regulation certainly doesn't happen all by itself. An incident happens, like 9/11, and then su

>where regulation is somehow a thing that happens all by itself Regulation certainly doesn't happen all by itself. An incident happens, like 9/11, and then suddenly Dropout Joe down at the TSA is groping my barefoot grandma in front of hundreds of looky-loos. I'm not completely anti-regulation, but I think people are perfectly capable of assessing the amount of risk they want to take for day to day maintenance on their house. I can literally drive 15 mins down the road to the local Home Depot and rent a plumbing snake for the day and do it myself. The fact that some people screwed up their own sewer lines almost certainly does not justify raising the costs for millions of other homes who need basic handy-man type services done in their homes. If I really feel like I want added protection, there's lots of options available. I can make sure my plumber is bonded, check references, for larger jobs I may want to make sure my plumber is certified by some form of trade union, etc.

thaumaturgy 9y ago
Well, good for you. Meanwhile, countless other people get bilked, scammed, and exploited, and laws are written to try to protect them. Some of them are good laws, and some of them aren't. I realize these laws create a terrible hardship for you, but they apply to everyone and that's just the way things are until we live in a society where you can carry a card certifying you as a person so competent that you may be exempted from your choice of laws.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  >I realize these laws create a terrible hardship for you It's not me who needs protection from over-regulation, I'm doing just fine. It's the poor your ideology is hurting. And you're doing it in the name of protecting the wealthy, which I don't understand. If what people might be doing carries systemic risk, then sure, regulate away. But let the poor snake my sewer line if that's what he wants to do to make a buck.
  - thaumaturgy 9y ago
    You seem to be approaching this strictly from, "regulations make it harder for the poor to provide cheap services to the rich". I'm coming at this from, "regulations make it harder for the rich to exploit the poor". Poor people need infrastructure maintenance too. (I'd expect them to need a disproportionately greater amount of it.) Poor people have fewer resources at hand for dealing with costly negligence. They can't afford a hotel for a few nights, they don't have an attorney in the contacts list that can write a mean letter, they can't just pay out of pocket to remediate the problem and then sue the service provider (or their insurance) later. When an under-trained, unregulated, uncertified professional comes out and doesn't happen to be one of those flawless gems that people like to point to as examples of everything working out in an unregulated environment, when they screw up and cause damage, poor people are left far worse off. As this article points out that I linked in another comment, it's unlikely that regulation reduces aggregate employment: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/2/14772518/environmental-regulations-jobs https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/2/14772518/env... Most non-partisan sources I can find suggest that professional licensing increases wages; some sources find a decrease in niche growth rates, others don't: [pdf, paywalled; sorry] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12190/pdf; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12190/pdf; http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1859&context=dissertations; http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_licensing#Evidence_on_the_effects_of_occupational_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_licensing#Evidenc... So you can look at it as, now the poor have to pay 15 to 20% more for professional services, or they can pay less but are more likely to be financially harmed by those services to an extent that would vastly exceed their initial savings. I take the view that spending $20 more for a plumber is worth having a certified and licensed professional. And, by the way, I've lived both sides of this. I've never been wealthy. I am right now in an "uncertain" housing situation -- my landlords have decided to terminate my tenancy because the median rental market in this region has gone up 27% in the last 12 months and the paperwork we signed doesn't allow them to raise the rent that much. I also owned and operated a technical business for 10 years, occasionally doing work that I really should have had some licenses for. I know, first-hand, what effect a stricter regulatory and licensing environment would have had on me as a low-cost service provider.

thaumaturgy 9y ago

Well, good for you. Meanwhile, countless other people get bilked, scammed, and exploited, and laws are written to try to protect them. Some of them are good laws, and some of them aren't. I realize these laws create a terrible hardship for you, but they apply to everyone and that's just the way things are until we live in a society where you can carry a card certifying you as a person so competent that you may be exempted from your choice of laws.

Consultant32452 9y ago
>I realize these laws create a terrible hardship for you It's not me who needs protection from over-regulation, I'm doing just fine. It's the poor your ideology is hurting. And you're doing it in the name of protecting the wealthy, which I don't understand. If what people might be doing carries systemic risk, then sure, regulate away. But let the poor snake my sewer line if that's what he wants to do to make a buck.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  You seem to be approaching this strictly from, "regulations make it harder for the poor to provide cheap services to the rich". I'm coming at this from, "regulations make it harder for the rich to exploit the poor". Poor people need infrastructure maintenance too. (I'd expect them to need a disproportionately greater amount of it.) Poor people have fewer resources at hand for dealing with costly negligence. They can't afford a hotel for a few nights, they don't have an attorney in the contacts list that can write a mean letter, they can't just pay out of pocket to remediate the problem and then sue the service provider (or their insurance) later. When an under-trained, unregulated, uncertified professional comes out and doesn't happen to be one of those flawless gems that people like to point to as examples of everything working out in an unregulated environment, when they screw up and cause damage, poor people are left far worse off. As this article points out that I linked in another comment, it's unlikely that regulation reduces aggregate employment: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/2/14772518/environmental-regulations-jobs https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/2/14772518/env... Most non-partisan sources I can find suggest that professional licensing increases wages; some sources find a decrease in niche growth rates, others don't: [pdf, paywalled; sorry] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12190/pdf; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12190/pdf; http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1859&context=dissertations; http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_licensing#Evidence_on_the_effects_of_occupational_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_licensing#Evidenc... So you can look at it as, now the poor have to pay 15 to 20% more for professional services, or they can pay less but are more likely to be financially harmed by those services to an extent that would vastly exceed their initial savings. I take the view that spending $20 more for a plumber is worth having a certified and licensed professional. And, by the way, I've lived both sides of this. I've never been wealthy. I am right now in an "uncertain" housing situation -- my landlords have decided to terminate my tenancy because the median rental market in this region has gone up 27% in the last 12 months and the paperwork we signed doesn't allow them to raise the rent that much. I also owned and operated a technical business for 10 years, occasionally doing work that I really should have had some licenses for. I know, first-hand, what effect a stricter regulatory and licensing environment would have had on me as a low-cost service provider.