The Regulators
May 22, 2007
Here is something to watch. When people hear “de-regulation,” what they hear is “get rid of stupid regulations that don’t make any sense.”
What they actually get is quite different. Those regulations never go away. The ones that go away are the smart ones, the ones that keep us safe, healthy, and relatively unencumbered by corporate stupidity.
One place to watch for this is the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Michael Baroody, an executive at the National Association of Manufacturers, has just been nominated as director. The NAM takes an adversarial stand against the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the NAM will be giving Baroody a $150,000 bonus before he leaves. Expect Baroody to either remove safety regulations or dramatically scale back oversight, letting manufacturers make more dangerous products — just as has happened at the FDA.
Think Progress has more on this.
Posted in Politics
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May 22nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I love the look. Nice work.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:20 am
Everybody has probably done this already, but if you want to get really irritated (no, pissed) about de-regulation (and, sadly, have your respect for humanity drop a few notches) be sure to check out Enron: The Smartest guys in the Room. The part where they cover the de-regulation of California’s energy market is shocking and de-moralizing, even to us jaded conspiracy nuts…