(July 19, 2016 at 4:27 pm)The Viking Wrote: I have Irish citizenship.

Sorted.

Yaaay! Let me guess, it's a holdover from a time when your ancestors came over to trade and give some monks a good kicking?

(July 20, 2016 at 3:51 pm)RobertE Wrote:

(July 20, 2016 at 3:50 pm)Napoléon Wrote: Knew this would be a Guardian opinion piece before I opened it. The headlines are just pure cringe.

Reading The Guardian is just as bad as reading The Sun. From one extreme to another.

Oh yeah, the supporters of the Tories and the the Supporters of the (now defunct) Liberal Party are the polar opposites of each other.

Fuck sake, idiot. When you kvetch at least make some attempt to be factual.

(July 20, 2016 at 4:01 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I don't actually know the specifics, just the narratives we get on this side of the pond.  That the UK had a sweetheart spot.  What's a good paper to get UK news out of, in your opinion, btw?  The Guardian and The Sun being out.

I'm guessing the Daily Heil with its still continuing support for the BUF and NSDAP.

(July 25, 2016 at 5:58 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(July 20, 2016 at 4:01 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I don't actually know the specifics, just the narratives we get on this side of the pond.  That the UK had a sweetheart spot.  What's a good paper to get UK news out of, in your opinion, btw?  The Guardian and The Sun being out.

I'm guessing the Daily Heil with its still continuing support for the BUF and NSDAP.

Oh, you're so funny.

(July 20, 2016 at 6:20 pm)Napoléon Wrote:

(July 20, 2016 at 6:08 pm)Mathilda Wrote: Excessive bureaucracy from whose point of view? The consumer and worker or the corporations trying to maximise their profit margins.

The thousands of small businesses. The fishing industry. Farmers.

Deregulators love small businesses, right up until it is time to fuck those businesspeople up the arse with deregulation.

(July 25, 2016 at 5:59 am)Bella Morte Wrote:

(July 25, 2016 at 5:58 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: I'm guessing the Daily Heil with its still continuing support for the BUF and NSDAP.

Oh, you're so funny.  

No just pointing out that the Heil never apologised for nor ever took back its support for those two organisations. Remember this is the paper that in the middle of WW2 wanted the UK to surrender to Hitler in order that both countries could go off and fight the "red menace".

(July 25, 2016 at 6:04 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(July 20, 2016 at 6:20 pm)Napoléon Wrote: The thousands of small businesses. The fishing industry. Farmers.

Deregulators love small businesses, right up until it is time to fuck those businesspeople up the arse with deregulation.

How does one fuck up a businesspeople up the arse with deregulation? I'm curious.

Seems to me it's like anything. You need moderation. Just like over-regulation is bad (although some people like to pretend it isn't even a thing), completed de-regulation can be equally as destructive.

The key point is what state of affairs do we have currently?

Deregulating big business in the name of small business, if we ignore the blatant dishonesty in the platforms and their rape and pillage mentality...-seems- like it would at least be a wash as to helping big/small business, all other things being equal.  Unfortunately, all other things are not equal.  Imagine what would happen to -actual- small farmers if the regulations here in the states..already loose, regarding what can and cannot carry the USDA Cert Organic standards were loosened further.

The little guys only exist because, at a critical point of scale, the overhead on a large organic operation starts to add up exponentially rather than linearly. Even so, most of our organic produce -already- comes from factory farms. If those factory farms lobbies can get just a -few- regulations loosed, the little guys will be gone and so will the product that the consumer wants. Hilariously, the consumer is unlikely to even know about it, because that sort of thing is back of the house business.

Deregulation, as practiced here, is just another form of silent corporate subsidy. "Well golly gee random megafarm..you can't turn a profit on this product? Let's loosen the regulations until you can! Don't worry, we tell everyone it's for the little guys." Compounding this sad scenario...is that the regulations which stand are almost invariably designed by and for those very same people that benefit from deregulation elsewhere. The reason for this isn't always or entirely sinister, they just have the money, time and influence to get the ear of lawmakers. Regulation and deregulation becomes a tool to push people out, with the one hand....and then benefit those remaining with the other.

Another fun example.  Building codes.  Now, ostensibly, these are in place to provide safe structures - and by and large I think that we can safely say that they do that.  However, they -have- been rigged by large builders (and their suppliers) in their own interests to some extent.  Now, if we deregulate, will those builders suddenly cease to dominate that market?  No.  Will there suddenly be an opening for the little guys?  No.  The only result is that the usual suspects will now produce substandard structures.  They wouldn't even have an incentive to lower their prices...they already know what we're willing to pay.

At it's heart, I think that the belief that deregulation is a good thing stems from the naive notion that businesses pass on their savings to their customers. They don't. They pass on their costs. It's a subtle but important distinction.

It's just too much fun.  Labor laws.  Now, the idea behind labor laws is to minimize exploitation and reduce poverty.  The extent to which they are successful at doing this can obviously be debated, but the intent..I think, cannot.  If we loosen those regulations, allowing people to work longer hours for less pay..in what -possible- way could either of those aims be achieved?  There will not suddenly appear more hours in the day..and it wouldn't matter if there were..if you had to work two, three, or four times as many hours to achieve parity with current wages. 

Now, I know that the idea here is that by doing so we might let the market decide the wage, but this is another naive belief.  The market will not determine the wage, the employer will, as is always the case.  We can ignore the fact that this incentivizes exploitation and poverty -entirely- and it's still difficult to see what benefit deregulation will bring to "the little guy".  That some people who do not currently have jobs will have jobs?   The people who do have jobs......what will happen there?  Will an employer continue to pay a person minimum wage if they don't have to, and are we actually confident in the ability of the labor market to drive wages up to a level commensurate with the work or approaching a livable wage?  If we could count on that, I think, it would have happened long ago.