It Really is About the Basics!

By Rich Kozlovich

As those who work in highly regulated industries can tell you....the bureaucrats are all about the process....not the outcome....and that process is maddening.  The higher you go with any bureaucratic structure; the more maddening it becomes. Why? Because those at the very top are completely unaware about how the businesses they are regulating work.  They have never worked in those businesses; they have never run those businesses; they have never asked what those who actuallly know about those businesses think about their rules and whether they are worthwhile or not.

In the pest control industry we have state regulators that are far more intimate about the details of our work than those at EPA making the rules.  They make rules seem almost irrational.  For example; recently the EPA changed the rules regarding the use of pyrethroids in structural pest control. They are limiting the amount of material and how it is to be applied to a structure in order to make sure there is as little run off as possible.

On the surface that may seem reasonable, except those same regulations allow me to treat a home two feet up and ten feet out from the foundation in a continuous band. And they are worried some small amount of material that will come off the house when it rains! Where is it going to go? Right into the area treated around the house......where I was already allowed to treat up to ten feet away and two feet up from the foundation...in a continuous band.

We have to understand....we have now turned over all authority and power to the Fourth Branch of Government.....the bureaucracy. An unaccountable absolute authority that is filled the people who went to college and into government and believe that government is the be all and end all.   Mussolini stated that "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State", and the world ultimately went to war because of it. Mussolini won! Below are some examples of the folly of big government, big budgets, big taxes and stupid political leaders and their lackeys.

• French Taxing, Italian Regulating, Greek Mooching, and IMF Economic Illiteracy - Daniel J. Mitchell - Every day brings more and more evidence that Obamanomics is failing in Europe. I wrote some “Observations on the European Farce” last week, but the news this morning is even more surreal. Compared to his foolishness on tax policy, Hollande is a genius when it comes to determining what time it is. Let’s start with France, where I endorsed the explicit socialist over the implicit socialist precisely because of a morbid desire to see a nation commit faster economic suicide. Well, Monsieur Hollande isn’t disappointing me. Let’s look at some of his new initiatives, as reported by Tax-News.com.
• Supposedly Bankrupt Greek Government to Reward Pedophiles with Disability Payments (January 2010) - By Dan Mitchell - I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I write about insanely stupid government policies. But I know I get more motivated to fight big government. How can anyone want to give more money and power to politicians, for instance, after reading these comparisons of dumb government policy in the United States and United Kingdom? Or how can anyone think it’s a good idea to expand the public sector after reading these examples of bureaucratic incompetence?
• I Always Suspected Greek Bureaucrats Were Useless Pieces of S**t, but even I’m Surprised to Learn that They’re Actually Collecting the Stuff - February 24, 2012 by Dan Mitchell - I’ve been having fun in recent months by comparing some of the foolish decisions of politicians and bureaucrats in the United States and United Kingdom. Here’s part of what I wrote in early January………But I think I understated the problem. Brainless policy choices are probably the inevitable result of having so many bureaucrats that they resort to asking for stool samples to justify their pointless and empty lives.