We should be Leary of ‘knee-jerk’ reactions. I know of no one that suggests there should be no regulation. At the same time over regulation is stifling our economy. I find it very interesting that we constantly compare the health insurance overhead to government overhead (forgetting the fraud that’s missed and the collection done by the IRS) and we don’t ever ask why.
The most obvious example to me, of over-regulation, is Sarbanes-Oxley. In the wake of Enron and others we rammed through this bill to correct the problem. Now keep in mind that People were sentenced to jail. Major fines were imposed. These practices were already illegal. But in thier infinite wisdom congress decided to make them more illegal. And the country cheered.
The cost of Sarbanes-Oxley are about $2 million per company per year (it only pertains to publicly traded companies). It was estimated to cost American businesses $1.4 Trillion in the first year. This is all overhead and mandated by the government. As we’ve seen with Bernie Madoff, it didn’t solve the problem. If someone is willing to break the law, making more laws, doesn’t stop them. It merely punishes those that follow the law. In the mean time we are driving business overseas, raising the cost of everything we buy, draining the economy of $trillions, and making ourselves less competitive on the world stage.
@tedd
I found the article about bank charges interesting. Are the overdraft fees too high, maybe. I had a check to the state bounce last year. The bank charged me $35 for that but the state charged me $359 for late fees and interest. So who is raping me more. Are we really solving the problem when we legislate that those that can’t manage thier finances should get a break and those that do so, should be penalized to cover it. And we created a whole new government agency to handle it. How much more does that cost?