Comments on: Regulation Aids the Large & Established

By: Joseph Hertzlinger

Joseph Hertzlinger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:26:54 +0000

Future leftists will cite this as a reason big business cannot be trusted … which will then be used as an argument for further regulations of big business.

By: Ian Random

Ian Random — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:11:47 +0000

Wait, I thought liberals hate stuff that would be sold by large retailers. Yet these large manufacturers are the only ones that can comply with the new laws. And to lower the cost of compliance they need to make everything in China to pay for the testing. So I’m confused.

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:09:05 +0000

I saw a story today about how Walmart is signing on with Obamacare in order to squash Target. Walmart reasons that it already provides health care for employees, so if the government makes Target do it too, it will give Walmart an advantage.

By: cmmjaime

cmmjaime — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:53:37 +0000

Good points. As a citizen and small businesswoman who tries to abide by the laws of our Country, and agrees that the Rule of Law is supposed to mean something, all this drama with CPSIA is just disheartening.

It is incredible to me that Congress can pass these kinds of laws, make these types of messes, and then refuse to fix them! If it has done nothing else, it has turned me into a much more serious Citizen Activist!

By: Fred Z

Fred Z — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:38:51 +0000

Seeing this post just after your July 4 post where you wrote of the ‘Rule of law’ depressed me. The Rule of law is dead in the west, destroyed in part by crap laws like this, in part by the sheer volume of the laws, in part by the shocking immorality and dishonesty of many, probably most, lawyers.

Anyway on your main point, I once watched it happen. At one time I was a lawyer and a real estate developer. As a developer I tried and failed to initiate a chain of small wilderness hotels on the German ‘Gasthaus’ model in one of our local wilderness areas. I realized I did not have the time, energy or money to risk in persuading the regulators to approve.

As a lawyer I watched one of our firm clients succeed. Just so your readers know it’s a beautiful mix of legal bribery and pressure.

‘Conferences’, ‘Educational’ sessions, ‘Seminars’ and ‘Consultations’ all held at resorts, golf courses or the best eateries in town, with ‘souvenirs’ such as free sets of golf clubs, entire wardrobes, lashings of caviar and champagne, all paid for by the developer with the regulators in gleeful, greedy attendance.

The pressure comes from politicians and people of influence who call the regulators and exert the pressure. Why? Because they too have received the legal bribes and pressure or expect a return favor from the developer or are re-paying an already given favor.

The laws being thwarted were stupid, the regulators were political appointees without an ounce of honesty or brains amongst them and thwarting the laws was a positive good. The resort was approved and built and has been successful.

But a smaller footprint development, which the rules were supposedly designed to promote, had no chance.

By: tomw

tomw — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:23:07 +0000

But, it is for the Children!! You know, those hundreds of thousands of children in the local ER’s with their lead poisoning!!! Oh, wait. There aren’t hundreds of thousands with Pb poisoning.

Can’t they do a little cost-benefit analysis? For heavens sake. Mattel should have been doing quality control, but didn’t. So, the rest of the industry, and a whole slew of home-made toy makers must now comply with this abomination.

I guess Congress is proof of the statement that stupidity is still not illegal…

tom

By: Sarah Natividad

Sarah Natividad — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:14:02 +0000

Tacky? Try impractical. These batch numbers have to be on everything, down to the little toys you get in a vending machine. Can you imagine putting a tracking label with batch number on a child’s post earring? We’re hoping CPSC will put some common sense guidance out there (e.g. allowing for tracking labels to be on packaging for tiny items) or even stay enforcement like they did with some of the other provisions of CPSIA. But the August 14 deadline is fast approaching, so at this point it’s a choice between complying the way you see fit and hoping it’s good enough, or going out of business.

By: Bob Smith

Bob Smith — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:45:24 +0000

It seems to me that laws this intrusive encourage lying. The BOM is just going to say “Button, Blue” without identifying the batch or lot number (if any) from the button’s manufacturer.

At heart, a serial number and a batch number are the same thing. The latter reduces to the former under degenerate conditions.

The real problem is that a batch number anywhere on (for example) a handmade doll is rather tacky.