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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (22667)	8/13/2010 3:11:14 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Obamas' to take another vacation , this time to Martha's Vineyard. they think they are royalty. assholes

To: Road Walker who wrote (22667)	8/16/2010 6:39:05 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

I think licensing even doctors, lawyers, and electricians is questionable. Certification would probably work as well, with those without specific knowledge themselves being able to rely on certified professional help, and those with specific knowledge, being better able to pick someone than anyone just relying on either licensing or certification. (The difference being at least in the context of this post, that a license is required in order to preform a function, a certification certifies you can, and might be a requirement from many consumers or from third party payers (for example a health insurance company might not pay for non-certified doctor's care), but it isn't a legal requirement, you wouldn't get charged with doing your job without a license (even if you could be charged with fraud for representing yourself as certified when you are not). But its not doctors and lawyers, and electricians that I was talking about. Again you present the seemingly most justified regulations in the area, but when considering cutting regulations you should look for the least justified (because after all you can cut them and leave the others). Licensing for floral arrangement, for interior decorators, for hair dressers, requiring a undertaker's license in order to sell coffins, restrictions on providing transport to other people (with cab licenses so limited that the "medallions" become worth a ton of money, and people can live off of renting them out to other people, and with informal transport cracked down on to the extent of having undercover police ask for a ride, and then offer money for the driver's gas and arresting the driver if they take the money).

To: Road Walker who wrote (22667)	8/27/2010 3:37:36 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 86356

OT Coffin Cartel Knocks Casket-Making Monks Jonathan H. Adler • August 25, 2010 2:39 pm The Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, saw much of their timber felled by Hurricane Katrina. To make the best of the situation, they began turning their downed trees into hand-crafted caskets. Business was brisk, prompting complaints from funeral homes and an investigation by the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors. In Louisiana, as in some other states, only a licensed “funeral parlor” may sell caskets or other “funeral merchandise.” Funeral caskets are high-margin items, so local funeral parlors don’t like the competition, and in-state parlors largely control the state regulatory board. The WSJ reports: This past March, the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors subpoenaed two abbey officials to a hearing. If found guilty of illegal casket sales, each official would face fines of between $500 and $2,500 per violation, the board warned. The hearing, scheduled for mid-August, was cancelled due to a tropical storm. By then, the monks had already prepared their own federal lawsuit, citing Louisiana’s “casket cartel.” The state funeral board has nine members, eight of whom are funeral industry professionals. The board “really has it in for the abbey,” complains Jeff Rowes, senior attorney at The Institute for Justice, an Arlington, Va., libertarian public-interest law firm representing the monks. The law, he says, “is an unconstitutional invasion of the right to earn an honest living.” There’s more on the lawsuit at the Institute for Justice website here. volokh.com