The UK is worse for this; quite likely, the reason is the tendency of our regulators to gold-plate regulations handed down by Brussels. Or simply to enforce regulations that our competitors don’t.
Another point worth making is that the regulatory load falls disproportionately on small businesses and particularly on very small ones, which have the greatest potential for creating growth. As an example here in the UK I will offer VAT. This involves detailed record-keeping and reporting which for a large business probably means ticking a box in the setup of their accounting software; for a small business it costs a great deal of money to comply with VAT reporting.
Yes, but not regulations in the way you think.
McMegan (Megan McArdle over at Atlantic) linked to a paper by this economics dude that reasons that the real problem is the high cost of energy and especially the high price of oil, which is sucking all of the “demand” right out of the economy.
So it probably not the Health Care Reform or maybe even the expiration of the tax cuts next year that is keeping us down. The three reasons the economy is tanked are energy, energy, and energy.
The Enviro-Leftie narrative is that if those Oil Companies and Righties had their way, we would lay waste to our natural environment in the manner of the Macondo Prospect Gulf Oil Spill, and we would do all of this without any hope of stretching the Age of Oil more than a couple years at best given the insatiable appetite of our gas-guzzling big cars and SUVs, and given the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change, we had better start building those windmills and solar panels and electric cars starting now.
President Obama could indeed turn around the economy and his reelection prospects today if he did a 180 on his Green Agenda, that is, an energy policy of making energy (in all forms) expensive (didn’t he as much as campaign on that — electric rates necessarily skyrocketing?). Even if the few short months (13 months) until the election are not time enough to drill many oil wells, the shift in policy would influence futures markets and hence the current cost of doing business right here and now.
The last time a President made energy scarcity the central theme, well, you know how that turned out. President Obama’s team must know this, right? That they have a choice between idealogical purity on “the environment” and pandering to the masses with their gas-guzzling CO2-emitting cars? Don’t they?
given the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change
Peak oil neuters the need to mitigate global warming.
we had better start building those windmills and solar panels and electric cars starting now.
And we already have. I see no reason for additional measures when the current ones are already excessive.
In real dollars, are fuel costs really all that high, historically speaking?
High energy costs certainly hurt the economy, Paul. No one is arguing that they don’t. However, the federal government alone produces thousands of new regulations each year. Just knowing which regulations might impact your business is difficult enough, then comes the challenge of complying with the new ones. I know some small business owners who have to hire consultants to keep track of these things and they don’t come cheap. My wife is a nurse who used to work in a medical practice. The cost of complying with the HIPPA regulations alone came to many thousand dollars per practice and that’s just one set of regulations. Multiply that by thousands of regulations each year and the costs get very high.
There was a boneheaded Democrat (is there any other kind) who tried to make the point a few weeks ago that the compliance costs of regulations were a form of stimulus. He stated that because businesses have to hire consultants, new regulations create jobs. I guess that moron never heard of the Broken Window Fallacy.
Paul,
I think the correct answer is : “All of the above.”
Indeed.
It IS obstruction of domestic energy production, raising energy prices.
It IS health care deform.
It IS pending and threatened tax hikes.
It IS regulations adding to the cost of doing business.
It IS a regime where the productive are routinely demonized and punished, while the parasites are praised.
The UK is worse for this; quite likely, the reason is the tendency of our regulators to gold-plate regulations handed down by Brussels. Or simply to enforce regulations that our competitors don’t.
Another point worth making is that the regulatory load falls disproportionately on small businesses and particularly on very small ones, which have the greatest potential for creating growth. As an example here in the UK I will offer VAT. This involves detailed record-keeping and reporting which for a large business probably means ticking a box in the setup of their accounting software; for a small business it costs a great deal of money to comply with VAT reporting.
Yes, but not regulations in the way you think.
McMegan (Megan McArdle over at Atlantic) linked to a paper by this economics dude that reasons that the real problem is the high cost of energy and especially the high price of oil, which is sucking all of the “demand” right out of the economy.
So it probably not the Health Care Reform or maybe even the expiration of the tax cuts next year that is keeping us down. The three reasons the economy is tanked are energy, energy, and energy.
The Enviro-Leftie narrative is that if those Oil Companies and Righties had their way, we would lay waste to our natural environment in the manner of the Macondo Prospect Gulf Oil Spill, and we would do all of this without any hope of stretching the Age of Oil more than a couple years at best given the insatiable appetite of our gas-guzzling big cars and SUVs, and given the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change, we had better start building those windmills and solar panels and electric cars starting now.
President Obama could indeed turn around the economy and his reelection prospects today if he did a 180 on his Green Agenda, that is, an energy policy of making energy (in all forms) expensive (didn’t he as much as campaign on that — electric rates necessarily skyrocketing?). Even if the few short months (13 months) until the election are not time enough to drill many oil wells, the shift in policy would influence futures markets and hence the current cost of doing business right here and now.
The last time a President made energy scarcity the central theme, well, you know how that turned out. President Obama’s team must know this, right? That they have a choice between idealogical purity on “the environment” and pandering to the masses with their gas-guzzling CO2-emitting cars? Don’t they?
given the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change
Peak oil neuters the need to mitigate global warming.
we had better start building those windmills and solar panels and electric cars starting now.
And we already have. I see no reason for additional measures when the current ones are already excessive.
In real dollars, are fuel costs really all that high, historically speaking?
High energy costs certainly hurt the economy, Paul. No one is arguing that they don’t. However, the federal government alone produces thousands of new regulations each year. Just knowing which regulations might impact your business is difficult enough, then comes the challenge of complying with the new ones. I know some small business owners who have to hire consultants to keep track of these things and they don’t come cheap. My wife is a nurse who used to work in a medical practice. The cost of complying with the HIPPA regulations alone came to many thousand dollars per practice and that’s just one set of regulations. Multiply that by thousands of regulations each year and the costs get very high.
There was a boneheaded Democrat (is there any other kind) who tried to make the point a few weeks ago that the compliance costs of regulations were a form of stimulus. He stated that because businesses have to hire consultants, new regulations create jobs. I guess that moron never heard of the Broken Window Fallacy.
Paul,
I think the correct answer is : “All of the above.”
Indeed.
It IS obstruction of domestic energy production, raising energy prices.
It IS health care deform.
It IS pending and threatened tax hikes.
It IS regulations adding to the cost of doing business.
It IS a regime where the productive are routinely demonized and punished, while the parasites are praised.