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This is being downvoted I guess for its tone, but I think the point is a good one: Laws that apply over a large jurisdiction are easier and cheaper to comply wi
by abeppu 3y ago
This is being downvoted I guess for its tone, but I think the point is a good one: Laws that apply over a large jurisdiction are easier and cheaper to comply with. Maybe a good example of this is laws surrounding alcohol; I think it's kind of crazy that a winery in CA trying to ship an order back to a tourist's home has to understand and comply with local and municipal laws on the other side of the country and knowing which counties are dry and where their specific boundaries are ... which creates real cost and complexity that each of those businesses contends with, and higher prices get passed on to all consumers.
When companies decide the complexity is too high, they sometimes just have to target the most stringent law that they can reasonably cover, e.g. car companies meeting CA emission standards can make CA the defacto national standard. A buyer in Texas is presumably paying a higher price for a car designed to meet a law in another state. It would be more democratic if there was just a national standard.
- mikem170 3y agoI don't have a lot of sympathy for the idea of making laws uniform for the convenience of large companies that operate across many jurisdictions. Besides the fact that the reduced cost of compliance you mention comes at the expense of the localities freedom to govern themselves, federal laws make it more convenient for these companies to manipulate the system to their advantage. A large company can bribe a couple hundred federal politicians to get their way instead of having to bribe many thousands across so many state legislatures or even more at a municipal level.
- systems_glitch 3y agoIndeed, diversity is resilience in many of life's categories.
- duskwuff 3y ago> I don't have a lot of sympathy for the idea of making laws uniform for the convenience of large companies that operate across many jurisdictions. What makes you think that only large companies operate across many jurisdictions?
- mikem170 3y agoPoint taken. I can't edit my original post, but I'd be happy to apply this logic to any company, large or small. Company profits are not more important that voters.
- DangitBobby 3y agoPretty much all voters work for companies or buy from companies and are impacted by the costs which are passed on to them.
- mikem170 3y agoWe can imagine situations where voters place more importance on things other than money, right? Like maybe the voters would prefer human police officers as opposed to armed drones, even if the drones were cheaper. Or maybe the voters don't want to be tracked by cameras everywhere they go, given how this data can be abused, even if it costs them $x more per year to shop.
- DangitBobby 3y agoI'm just saying legal costs impact everyone and giving money to legions of lawyers isn't free for John Q Voter.
- mikem170 3y agoBut couldn't it also go the other way, where small local companies who don't need a legion of lawyers would have a competitive advantage over larger companies trying to operate across many jurisdictions? I assume this depends on the regulations being imposed. We already have large companies with legions of lawyers who have the resources to manipulate federal and state politicians in their favor, using regulatory capture and other means to avoid competition. There's a cost associated with that, too.
- wombatpm 3y agoI love how costs are immediately passed on to consumers and employees, but profits remain and should never be allowed to decrease ever for shareholders