Tuesday, April 01, 2014
GM: More Evidence against the Regulatory State
I've long said that government regulation gives people a false sense of security, which is worse than no sense of security at all. Latest evidence: GM's ignition-switch failure.
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4 comments:
Yes, obviously, because GM under the anti-regulatory Right-Wing Regime which controlled the NHTSA, the EPA the MHSA, and other regulatory bodies in the 2000s believe in the Myths of Self-Regulation and Enlightened Self Interest.
We can most assuredly rely on BP or Duke Energy to not pollute our water!
If you don't know that GM is a creature of the state, I can only lament this deficiency in this area of your knowledge. I'm not calling merely for the abolition of regulation, but abolition of all corporate-state privilege as well. They are two sides of the same coin. Deregulate! De-privilege! That's the battle cry.
Moreover, you're making my point. The very existence of the regulatory regime, even when an administration is "lax," lulls people into a false sense of security. They'd have protected themselves better in the absence of that regime. So thank you very much.
Sheldon come on! Regulatory bodies have been routinely sabotaged by the very people who hate regulations and for you to claim that regulatory failure is a direct result of administrations laxness and not a hand-in-glove relationship between powerful Corporations purchasing Government is obtuse.
GM's ignition switch was designed in the late 90s and put into vehicles in the mid aughts. GM was not "Government Motors" until far later.
Sure, consumers should do their own research.
But, are you honestly claiming you could or did compile data on the switch or every other component of every vehicle in order to make regulations obsolete?
You seem determined not to understand what I'm saying. Of course regulators work hand in glove with industry. Free-market people call that "regulatory capture." It's an old story, and it's part of the case for getting rid of the state. You seem to naively believe there can be saint-regulators. It's the Nirvana Fallacy.
I said that the very appearance of a regulatory regime lulls people into a false sense of security. This is true whether the regulators seem to be vigilant or are shilling for industry. Without the state, reliable dispensers of information would fulfill the need for consumer protection. No one could operate on the assumption that "they couldn't sell that if it wasn't safe."
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