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Rather than go far afield from the topic where this conversation started, I’ve chosen to answer you in a new thread.
-Workplace safety (mainly manufacturing)
Many of the greatest strides in workplace safety came about as a result of the early unions (not that they are without problems). Since the government has taken over the oversight of workplace safety the have over-regulated it, as they have most other things. Or, as someone once said, whenever you hear of a new chumra, someone just invented a new product.
-Child labor (all industry)
The government did succeed in taking children out of many dangerous occupations, and has instead placed them in big institutions of indoctrination. While it is certainly good to keep children out of the mines, government schools are not the best place for children.
-Minimum wage (low-skilled jobs)
Minimum wage in the US is a joke. Do you really think people can afford to live on $7.25/hour? That’s less than $300/week. If the government were serious about a minimum wage that people can actually live on, it would be more in the $20 range.
-Anti-trust (all industry)
Unfortunately, I don’t have my library at hand to do the research needed on anti-trust legislation and how the FTC has overstepped their authority. We’ll have to save that for another day.
-Insider trading (brokerage)
I’m not quite sure what is wrong with using inside information to your benefit. Nobody has ever explained that to me. Perhaps you can.
-Discrimination (all industry)
What’s wrong with discrimination? As a business-owner, shouldn’t you have the right to hire and fire whoever you choose? For whatever reason? Why should you be forced to work with people you do not want to work with?
-Reasonable accommodation for handicapped / special needs (all industry)
Would you really like a list of every accommodation made for one handicap that adversely affected someone with a different handicap? Not sure I have the time for all that.
-Much more
There are negative consequences to some of the above protections, but overall there is far more good than bad provided by the above protections and regulations.
Just keep in mind what a regulation is. It’s someone’s way of saying, “I want you to behave in a certain manner. And if you choose not to behave in that manner, we will have someone with a badge, a uniform and a gun make sure you DO behave in the desired manner.”
Haifagirl- in my opinion, many of the opinions you express above are both naive/ignorant and not in concert with Torah values.
For starters, there are plenty of reasonable accomodations made for handicapped people that have no effect whatsoever on non-handicapped people.
Your explanation of what regulation is has no impact. Yes, societies make rules based on their values. Look at all the people on this website talking about toeiva marriage- we want a society that reflects our values.
Isn’t the title by definition an oxymoron?
Haifagirl- in my opinion, many of the opinions you express above are both naive/ignorant..
Please just present your information, theories, opinions, etc about the issues you wish to address, and leave your opinions about other posters on the cutting room floor.
Moderator- I did not express an opinion about a poster, but about the positions she expressed.
And I wasn’t referring to you. I was only referring to your post.
Of course, if I offended haifagirl, I apologize.
-Workplace safety (mainly manufacturing)
Many of the greatest strides in workplace safety came about as a result of the early unions (not that they are without problems). Since the government has taken over the oversight of workplace safety the have over-regulated it, as they have most other things. Or, as someone once said, whenever you hear of a new chumra, someone just invented a new product.
Yes, unions had a lot to do with labor laws. This isn’t disagreeing with my point that this is an area where government regulation has been beneficial. If your point is that laws may not have been passed without union pressure, I may have to agree with that (at least to a certain extent).
-Child labor (all industry)
The government did succeed in taking children out of many dangerous occupations, and has instead placed them in big institutions of indoctrination. While it is certainly good to keep children out of the mines, government schools are not the best place for children.
Child labor and mandatory education are two separate subjects. I don’t share your view of education.
-Minimum wage (low-skilled jobs)
Minimum wage in the US is a joke. Do you really think people can afford to live on $7.25/hour? That’s less than $300/week. If the government were serious about a minimum wage that people can actually live on, it would be more in the $20 range.
That sounds like a great idea. Actually, to pay several tuitions and a mortgage, minimum wage would need to be in the $60 + range. Unfortunately, that would be unsustainable. Most businesses that pay low wages couldn’t afford a minimum wage of $20 an hour and would shut down. For a full-time breadwinner it isn’t enough, but for teenagers, as a second job, or just to help the primary wage earner it’s a lot better than nothing. For someone who is between good-paying jobs it can be a welcome supplement to food stamps and other social programs.
-Anti-trust (all industry)
Unfortunately, I don’t have my library at hand to do the research needed on anti-trust legislation and how the FTC has overstepped their authority. We’ll have to save that for another day.
If your point is that some monopolies that the govt. broke up were relatively benign, you’re probably right. I assume you’re not in favor of legalizing price fixing and collusion.
-Insider trading (brokerage)
I’m not quite sure what is wrong with using inside information to your benefit. Nobody has ever explained that to me. Perhaps you can.
The stock market would cease to exist if people had no way of knowing if they were being played for patsies by insiders who had information they were not privy to. Can you imagine the killing the investigators who busted Enron could’ve made if they legally could have shorted the stock before the scandal broke?
This isn’t even touching on the issues of fairness, a level playing field, and a broker having within his power the ability to enrich one client and make another a pauper at a whim.
-Discrimination (all industry)
1) What’s wrong with discrimination? 2) As a business-owner, shouldn’t you have the right to hire and fire whoever you choose? For whatever reason? 3) Why should you be forced to work with people you do not want to work with?
1) It’s reprehensible. It’s un-American. It’s a violation of civil rights law. 2) Yes, unless they’re in a protected class. 3) You’re not forced to work with them. You can quit or sell your business.
-Reasonable accommodation for handicapped / special needs (all industry)
Would you really like a list of every accommodation made for one handicap that adversely affected someone with a different handicap? Not sure I have the time for all that.
If a major convenience for one group can be done while creating a minor inconvenience to another, it probably should be done. If there is no overall gain, it probably shouldn’t be done. In the case of your friend: a) without the wide outward-swinging door mandated by law, she couldn’t get into the stall anyway. b) if the majority of wheelchair bound people require a low-slung fixture, that’s probably how the rules would require it. c) if the company wanted to be really “mentchlich” they could’ve added a second handicapped stall with a low fixture for your friend.
Just keep in mind what a regulation is. It’s someone’s way of saying, “I want you to behave in a certain manner. And if you choose not to behave in that manner, we will have someone with a badge, a uniform and a gun make sure you DO behave in the desired manner.”
Yes, laws are meant to be enforced. Otherwise, someone might violate one with impunity and say something about “There is no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of law.”
Laws for handicapped people do affect non handicapped people.
A restaurant that has only a few tables and a small space does not have room or renovation money to install handicapped facilities.
And small stores which are required to widen aisles to accommodate wheelchairs
will have to eliminate some shelves which in turn makes them far less competitive
and could possibly force them out of business.
I have seriously suffered all through my life because of minimum wage laws, from unions and their influence.
Way back, when I was a teenager I worked part time after public school (My family and thus I too, was not religious at the time in any way, we did not even know from it)
and they started me at a lower training wage which was fine with me because I was still earning more money then I had before I started working, and did not need rent money.
But I ‘did’ need the experience and was grateful to get it.
The problem was that after two months the state law required them to raise my wage to minimum and to put me in the union.
The business management decided I was not good enough for them to be committed to
paying the extra and giving me union immunity from being fired and other remedies they would otherwise have against employees who did not work out or were not worth such wages.
So they fired me.
After that, I never was able to keep any job, long enough to gain the necessary experience to make me a valuable employee and move up the business world.
I have finally achieved some small measure of understanding what a boss wants and how to do it properly, but it too far too long.
Now I am not too far from retirement age and have no prospects of
starting out at any new job and earning enough to pay my expenses while working let alone in retirement.
I now have no prospects for the future and no hope.
Minimum wage is a scam as are today’s unions.
If a person is worth a certain wage, they will earn it.
With artificially raised minimum wages employers simply demand that every new hire, has plenty of experience which means beginners never get the chance to get that experience.
Unions pretend to be for the average worker but they too will not let the average worker into the union, they ate elitist closed clubs which only a privileged few, can ever enter.
It is easier to get into an exclusive private school then into any union where someone can get high pay, just because they are in that union.
The more government stays out of business and not just stops new regulations but eliminates many that are already in place, the better business and the better off, the average worker will be.
To here or there,
Your life is not over. You should go back to school. You can become a (even if you are male)nurse in 2-3 years and probably get a job even in todays environment. Hashem requires every person to try -sucess is up to him. Also, nowadays there is no such thing as near retirement age. Retirement age should have gone out the window when the life expectency increased in this country.
Miminumwage and child labor laws are great.
You have an epidemic of juvenile crime with youngsters who are not of the “book learning” type.
Instead of them being able to work and gain a valubale sense of self worth, contribute to their families finances, gain valubuable carrer expierience,they roa the streets and commit crime?
What happens after they get caught.
Their sent to juvenile prisons where they are rehabilited through work and job training which are largely useless because they have already gotten used to a life of crime.
To Health;
The problem is that I do not qualify for any financial Aid and I have
have had more then one person claim they could find some for me and they have ALL failed including those who work full time finding such financial aid for people.
Besides that even if I HAD such aid it would not cover my rent and other bills
while I was not working and going to school so as to finish in any reasonable time
(like fast enough to get my teeth fixed before the agony becomes totally unbearable).
To Ben Levi;
The minimum wage laws, have done nothing to help anyone or to stop crime.
An employer without them, might have hired someone with no experience; So that person could start learning how to do a job and how to keep a job.
Now, they will in most cases, make sure the inexperienced person will never get that necessary experience by never hiring them (I have plenty of personal experience in this matter trying for years to get many different jobs where I could start working while training).
Sure you might find and exception or two, but in most cases those without experience are priced out of the market by minimum wage laws.
And those who turn to crime will do so no matter how high the minimum wage goes.
Because street drugs will always bring in more money in one hour then any minimum wage would ever pay in a week (or even in a month, in many cases).
In fact, it is these liberal laws and the media and liberals in general, who always blame business and constantly reinforce on children the idea that the entire work system is corrupt and only those “greedy CEO’s”, will ever have the luxuries of life.
This convinces many to turn to crime which they would do, even if the minimum wage were $60.00 per hour.
To here or there,
The only way you don’t qualify is if you’re making too much money. College isn’t a freebe for those that can afford tuition. Also, however you are paying your expensives now, is how you pay them while you are going to college. Financial aid isn’t supposed to cover your living expensives.
So some illegal alien who gets so much in government freebees that effectively he makes twice what I make, will also get free tuition while me an American citizen has to pay for HIM and still I am deemed “too rich” to get any tuition.
Why is the government NOT supposed to cover living expenses but they want to destroy the economy to cover free health care for everyone?
If I had the tuition plus living expenses, I could get the degree and then earn what I need and never have to rely on government health care.
This proves that the whole system is not about helping anyone, but instead is simply promoting the agenda of ever larger government, till they control everything in everyones lives just like they do in North Korea.
Those who are indiscriminately blasting government regulation and labor unions haven’t reviewed their American history, in particular the horrific conditions in sweatshops a hundred years ago. You can start with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed over a hundred workers, many of them desparately poor Jewish immigrants.
hereorthere,
You make a great point about the cost of education. Most countries charge far less for undergraduate education than does the US; some, such as Ireland, don’t charge tuition at all. And the quality of undergraduate education in Canada and Europe is just as good as in the US.
But you are mistaken when you imply that there is a serious attempt to provide free health care for all in the US. The current health care reform proposals will simply make it possible for the currently uninsurable to get insurance. It does not create any new government plan.
The triangle factory fore was caused by fire hazzards, and had nothing to do with the amount of pay a worker got.
Also it would have changed because of public pressure and government did not need to get involved.
Now the same ones who want to eminimate transfats are the same ones who want to legalize drugs.
There is a massive difference between caring about safety and trying to regulate everyone out of business so this country becomes a third world colony of the New superpower….China where capitalism is allowed and they are reapng the rewards while we go down for the third and final count, never to be heard from again as any kind of economic or militarty power.
Sorry Charlie but the government plan is designed to make the cost of private insurance so prohibitive that employeers will be forced to ‘choose’ the government option which will effectively eliminate all private health care and fporce everyone onto the government plan.
Why do you think it is over 32,000 pages long?
Why do you think it is going to cost trillions of dollars and permanently bankrupt the country?
Just to insure a few who do not now have a plan?
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