4 ms·

A proposal: for a trial period of 2 years, allow businesses to open without any red tape. Fire / plumbing / electrical / etc inspections are scheduled for the

A proposal: for a trial period of 2 years, allow businesses to open without any red tape. Fire / plumbing / electrical / etc inspections are scheduled for the earliest slot, but doesn't prevent the business from opening. If the inspection fails, business and/or applicable contractor pays a gigantic fine. If the business receives some number of complaints over a certain threshold per capita per square mile per time period, it goes to a judge that decides whether the business lives or dies. Crappy idea?

seanhunter 2y ago
Crappy idea. Say a fire inspection doesn't prevent a business opening so it opens and promptly burns down the building its in, innocent people living in apartments above the business die. I'm sure they will appreciate that while their personal position isn't great their sacrifice is contributing to the regeneration of the city as a whole. Likewise say an electrical inspection doesn't prevent the business opening, so some poor schmoe gets cooked while plugging in a vaccum cleaner or whatever. Most of this so called "red tape" exists for a reason and people who are affected by it complain a lot but as in Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy, we never see the people who benefit from these regulations because they are protected from injury and thus the events never happen. At the margin I'm sure regulation does put some people off running some businesses, but it's really debatable whether removing regulation would be enough to regenerate lots of businesses in cities. The headwinds they are facing seem structural - people are going into offices less are working from home more and so are using different goods and services and in different places from those they were using back pre-pandemic.
- quartesixte 2y ago
  "Regulations are written in blood" is, while a valid point, also something of a brain-worm. Plenty of countries have just as good safety track records without the difficulty many US municipalities present while you are trying to start a business. I think the problem with US regulations is (as far as I have encountered them) that they are descriptive of intended end-results, and not prescriptive of compliant implementation. This creates a lot of bureaucratic inefficiency at the implementation/inspection side as well as lots of ambiguity on end-results. The trade here is some measure of future-proofing and greater freedom on implementation. Unfortunately, this ironically has created the strange mess we face today. Two reasons: 1. Enforcement is retroactive. You build it, and then it's inspected to code. If you fail code, you are work-stopped, penalized, and then ordered to rebuild to code. This forces an inordinate amount of caution and makes everyone involved risk-adverse to comical degrees. And creates, again, ambiguity. 2. Enforcement can happen after business commencement. That is, you start selling doughnuts, and THEN the Department of Water's sewage inspector shows up and finds that your plumbing isn't to some inane, inconsequential section of the code. Why did they show up so late? Well, as it turns out passing this part of the regulations isn't necessary to starting operations. Why didn't anyone stop you from City Hall? Because ... honestly they might know or care. Ambiguous implementations with punitive consequences after the fact. There are countries who do this the other way around. Incredibly prescriptive regulations that in-turn, can be easily checked and verified. Etc. Etc. Does this stifle some amount of innovation? Yes. Is there forms of madness for this style? Absolutely. But from my point of view, the velocity and ease of business growth seems to favor one over the other. And it is NOT the USA's model.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  I don't have as an emotional reaction, so it's not clear to me why in that scenario it wouldn't be on the city to make sure they're doing inspections at a rate that can keep up with development instead of slowing down development to keep a smaller budget? The slowing of development is clearly a political tool that can be used to wield political power & favors. I'm not sure the consequences of removing that tool but it would be that. There's also a concern about budget because if the development pace keeps up enough, then queue management of outstanding orders is also a problem (although that's true today, it's a problem for developers instead of the government). It might be interesting to have statuatory pricing for scheduling inspections for specific times (e.g. if you need it by next Monday, the price is 10 000x, if you make a reservation for an inspection in 12 months, the price is 0.5x & if you reschedule there's a meaningful penalty) & having requirements that the inspection must be completed within X days of some milestone (e.g. the business being open). That way the budget problem and the development process are intertwined and self-funded without involving politics and limiting how much competitors can screw over each other. Also, it's not all or nothing. Fire inspections are not typically the issue. The bigger issue though is things like electrical inspections which are blockers since they have to happen before other parts of the process complete (i.e. hard to inspect electrical when the business is open and the walls are all finished).
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
I’m sick to death of software developers attempting to drive-by engineer solutions to fake problems that they have zero idea about. Like, come on. Maybe it’s be worth getting some input from someone that actually knows what common problems these supposedly needlessly burdensome regulation tend to pick up.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Well, it's not as if the people who do this sort of thing professionally are doing a competent job.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  It's not a bad idea to consider an outsider's perspective of a completely alternate structure and to experiment when things aren't working. Focusing just too much on insider expertise can narrow your focus to in-the-box thinking and encourages the status quo which benefits those insiders. You're right that you should consider the expertise of insiders - you need both groups working in tandem.

seanhunter 2y ago

Crappy idea. Say a fire inspection doesn't prevent a business opening so it opens and promptly burns down the building its in, innocent people living in apartments above the business die. I'm sure they will appreciate that while their personal position isn't great their sacrifice is contributing to the regeneration of the city as a whole. Likewise say an electrical inspection doesn't prevent the business opening, so some poor schmoe gets cooked while plugging in a vaccum cleaner or whatever. Most of this so called "red tape" exists for a reason and people who are affected by it complain a lot but as in Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy, we never see the people who benefit from these regulations because they are protected from injury and thus the events never happen. At the margin I'm sure regulation does put some people off running some businesses, but it's really debatable whether removing regulation would be enough to regenerate lots of businesses in cities. The headwinds they are facing seem structural - people are going into offices less are working from home more and so are using different goods and services and in different places from those they were using back pre-pandemic.

quartesixte 2y ago
"Regulations are written in blood" is, while a valid point, also something of a brain-worm. Plenty of countries have just as good safety track records without the difficulty many US municipalities present while you are trying to start a business. I think the problem with US regulations is (as far as I have encountered them) that they are descriptive of intended end-results, and not prescriptive of compliant implementation. This creates a lot of bureaucratic inefficiency at the implementation/inspection side as well as lots of ambiguity on end-results. The trade here is some measure of future-proofing and greater freedom on implementation. Unfortunately, this ironically has created the strange mess we face today. Two reasons: 1. Enforcement is retroactive. You build it, and then it's inspected to code. If you fail code, you are work-stopped, penalized, and then ordered to rebuild to code. This forces an inordinate amount of caution and makes everyone involved risk-adverse to comical degrees. And creates, again, ambiguity. 2. Enforcement can happen after business commencement. That is, you start selling doughnuts, and THEN the Department of Water's sewage inspector shows up and finds that your plumbing isn't to some inane, inconsequential section of the code. Why did they show up so late? Well, as it turns out passing this part of the regulations isn't necessary to starting operations. Why didn't anyone stop you from City Hall? Because ... honestly they might know or care. Ambiguous implementations with punitive consequences after the fact. There are countries who do this the other way around. Incredibly prescriptive regulations that in-turn, can be easily checked and verified. Etc. Etc. Does this stifle some amount of innovation? Yes. Is there forms of madness for this style? Absolutely. But from my point of view, the velocity and ease of business growth seems to favor one over the other. And it is NOT the USA's model.
vlovich123 2y ago
I don't have as an emotional reaction, so it's not clear to me why in that scenario it wouldn't be on the city to make sure they're doing inspections at a rate that can keep up with development instead of slowing down development to keep a smaller budget? The slowing of development is clearly a political tool that can be used to wield political power & favors. I'm not sure the consequences of removing that tool but it would be that. There's also a concern about budget because if the development pace keeps up enough, then queue management of outstanding orders is also a problem (although that's true today, it's a problem for developers instead of the government). It might be interesting to have statuatory pricing for scheduling inspections for specific times (e.g. if you need it by next Monday, the price is 10 000x, if you make a reservation for an inspection in 12 months, the price is 0.5x & if you reschedule there's a meaningful penalty) & having requirements that the inspection must be completed within X days of some milestone (e.g. the business being open). That way the budget problem and the development process are intertwined and self-funded without involving politics and limiting how much competitors can screw over each other. Also, it's not all or nothing. Fire inspections are not typically the issue. The bigger issue though is things like electrical inspections which are blockers since they have to happen before other parts of the process complete (i.e. hard to inspect electrical when the business is open and the walls are all finished).

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

I’m sick to death of software developers attempting to drive-by engineer solutions to fake problems that they have zero idea about. Like, come on. Maybe it’s be worth getting some input from someone that actually knows what common problems these supposedly needlessly burdensome regulation tend to pick up.

CamperBob2 2y ago
Well, it's not as if the people who do this sort of thing professionally are doing a competent job.
vlovich123 2y ago
It's not a bad idea to consider an outsider's perspective of a completely alternate structure and to experiment when things aren't working. Focusing just too much on insider expertise can narrow your focus to in-the-box thinking and encourages the status quo which benefits those insiders. You're right that you should consider the expertise of insiders - you need both groups working in tandem.