Sharks in the Septic Tank Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: cosmicforce who wrote (8769)	3/16/2001 1:47:47 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 82486

Do you really think we'd have seatbelts or 40 hour workweeks and paid health if it was just up to the free market? Sorry, bub, but that all came from your pinko friends. I might get it because my skills are in demand, but I doubt many others would. With a minimal government I think we would have still have seatbelts but they would have spread slower. We would not have laws requiring wearing seatbelts but I think that would be a plus. We wouldn't have 40 hours works weeks in the same way you do now (meaning you get overtime if they make you work over 40), but we would have more take home pay and I think many people would not work more then they do now. The 40 hour work weak doesn't apply if you make a large enough salary then you are exempt. Paid health care? Well we would have less company provided health care insurance if the tax laws didn't favor it, but that would not be entirely a bad thing. Some companies would offer it as a benefit to attract workers even without the tax benefit. In other cases they would have to offer more money instead and the employee could search for insurance that best met his or her needs. Such a system might even contain health care costs better compared to the current system when the recipients of health care figure someone else is paying for it. I am not disputing that there are benefits from having a large active government. Put that much money and energy into something and you would have to be creatively incompetent for their to be no benefit. All I am saying is that in most cases the benefits are exceeded by the costs. You could cherry pick the best examples of government action all day, and you could probably find some that I have no answer to other then "yes I agree our lives are better because of this action", but you have to consider the whole impact not just the best unless you support the idea that all of the other things government does besides the few things it does best should be eliminated. It took industry 10 years to put a 3rd light on their pickups and vans, even though experiments showed it drops accidents dramatically. But it also lowers insurance work, a profit center. Funny how that works. You are submitting this as a bad thing but yet it occurred in a situation where we have a large government with lots of regulations that you seem to be defending. As for dropping accidents dramatically I've seen summaries of studies that disputed that but they where only for cars so perhaps it does have a big effect on pickups and vans. In any case I find it a huge and unsupported reach to contend that these lights were opposed because they would reduce insurance work. More likely if they were opposed for a greedy reason it would be because of the cost of changing the design and the cost of buying and installing the lights. Tim

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next