Against Goliath

Okay, everyone buy a Chevy Volt even though it costs twice what a comparable gas powered car costs and has half the expecteed life cycle.  Do it to help President Obama reduce the amount of gas we import.

Or we could change the laws.  Yeah, we have a shot (this is sarcasm).  In Mexico they have a Hyundai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Atos  that gets 44 MPG and costs less than $6000.  In India they have a car that looks like a Smart Car and costs under $3000 and get 66 MPG.  Do you think we could get either car here?  If so, you are deluded.  If you want to get 40 MPG in the United States you need to spend over $40,000.

Why?  Because of the DEP.  We have laws that do not look at how much pollutants are produced by a motor vehicle (that would make sense) but rather what percentage of the entire exhaust is pollutant.  That means we need larger motor sizes to run all the emmisssions controls in order to put out, overall, more pollutants than a smaller engine, but a lesser percentage of the total exhaust.

Why?  Because it is complicated and they got away with it.  Is Congress going to change anything?  Our Congress?

So, no, we will not get a cheaper car, only a more expensive car.  Is that good for the environment?  Good for the economy?  Neither, but it is the law.

Copyright 2012 Kent Johnson

Having just spent a week in Cancun highlights all the differences in politics between countries.  From an American perspective there are hardly any laws in Mexico.  Apparently Mexicans hardly think about the difference, but there are signs of change.  I certainly don’t understand Mexican politics, but I have visited the country in the past, see things as they are from television and newspapers, and notice some changes.

Decades ago there were no government services in Mexico to speak of.  The country did not trust the government, did not care.  And that was fine with the government as well.  Police made almost no money from their salary and made their living levying fines on those they deemed offenders of the laws.  The process worked that way all the way up the food chain, it was just the system. Taxes were levied whenever money changed hands, 5% of the gross.  The government levied the tax wherever and whenever it could, and the people avoided paying it the same way.

There was no industry to speak of except in the big cities, but the weather was always good and people did not starve due to their own agriculture and micro economics in the villages.  The federal government was hated and avoided whenever possible.  This made the country ripe for growing and exporting drugs to the United States.  The people in general, however, did not use or approve of drugs.  But grassroots organizations in isolated areas began to export and spread the wealth around.  The people hated the government but began improving their lot in life through exports.

In many cases drug cartels were indistinguishable from aid organizations and other agricultural enterprises.  They were employers, but they avoided the government with more vitality than other employers.    Security was necessary but the money was good, and the government was resisted by paying it off and/ or direct rebellion.  Many popular uprisings were characterized by media and governmental institutions as drug wars.

The money came from the United States, and politics on this side of the border put the burden on Mexico to stop the export instead of trying to stop import.  The US sent money and people since the beginning of the DEA to Mexico to stop the cultivation and export of drugs when the only reason for its cultivation was because of the large market for those drugs in the US.  That money was often the impetus for squashing popular uprisings in isolated villages with great forces.  The Mexican government was blamed and the people hated the government more and more for the misery it was bringing them.

This trip, however, I see ads on TV, billboards and newspaper articles telling people what the Federal government is doing for them.  Mainly it is in public access to the beaches (federal property in Mexico) and high speed roadways but it is a start.  Just look at all the Federal services we get in the US.  Transportation, education, health, labor…  The number of people who get a monthly federal check is enormous.  And we are paying the consequences, which brings us back to the beginning of this article.  There are too many laws in the US for us to support with taxes. 

I hope Mexico does a few things with federal dollars to help itself to develop.  No country should scrimp on spending for the education of its youth.  And any country that can stop or slow corruption of its government will see immediate benefits to its people.  I have suggestions there, but no good advice.  Scape-goating many officials seems the only way to start such an enormous endeavor, but it must be coupled with fair pay for government employees.

To the editor of the Register Citizen.

I have been looking for a simple way to explain what is wrong with America for a long time and today’s news in the Torrington Register Citizen shows it simply. We have too many laws, too many politicians, too many lawyers, and too many prisoners. The taxpayer just can’t pay for it all.

Innocent children, as many as 2 million of them nationwide, were brought to this country by cars and trains and boats and planes, and their parents decided to put them in the school system. Because of that decision as many as 35 years ago, and a complicated and seriously broken set of laws, our government has decided to begin deporting them. These people have broken no laws. There is no law against “being” in America. But they are deportable and they have NO CHANCE of ever being “legal” in the only country they have ever known. Does anyone think there will be any change any time soon?

And then there is a guy who began fixing cars in a garage without getting, what, seven or eight permits and licenses? How long should he go to jail?

As a business owner in Torrington I know it is practically impossible to do anything according to the law. So I don’t. I continue what I have been doing for years and not start anything new because, hey, I could go to jail, or go bankrupt trying to avoid breaking way too many laws.

Only government employees and lawyers benefit from these laws. Well, there are also those businesses licensed by government employees to do work and thereby have a government sanctioned monopoly on all work and charge more to pay the taxes, permits, lawyers, professionals and government inspectors. These are the businesses that hire lobbyists and contribute to campaigns so that they can keep their monopolies. Just ask the guy who wanted to repair cars in his garage. Or Microsoft, who sued me for $2 million dollars and lost.

My industry is not yet licensed, but when it is I will have to charge a lot more for my services. In China they can build a skyscraper or a bridge in a year. In the US we are lucky to break ground in five years or finish in a decade. Watch the US become regulated into bankruptcy and largely unregulated Latin America increase their quality of life because they have newer infrastructure and more productive manufacturing.

The US Congress costs us about a million dollars per congress person per year in salary and benefits paid to each of more than 500 of them. That is over $5 billion (with a B) a year. And they get nothing done. Would we be better off with more politicians? Will we ever have fewer politicians?

I’m just saying there are too many laws, and too many politicians, and too many lawyers, and too many government employees, and too many prisoners, and too many illegal immigrants, and no way to change any of it or pay for it all. If our government were a business it would be time to cut out some overhead. The only people to benefit from our system are the politicians and lawyers and government employees, and the monopolies they created.