That is a foolish statement, made by someone who has obviously never run a business. Employees, much like clients, cost far more to obtain than to keep. Sunk costs with new employees include training, HR costs, and huge administrative overhead. At the same time, with government mandated workers comp insurance, there is also a HUGE price to be paid for on-the-job injuries. A company with a high Ex-Mod will pay enormously for the same insurance their neighbor or competitor got for 1/2 the price. And the difference easily becomes tens of thousands, even for a small organization with only a few employees.
And when one takes into account the rising cost of healthcare (which is essentially what workers comp initially takes care of), the delta between premiums of compliant companies with great track records, versus employers who do not take care, is growing astronomically.
In other words, the market already has economic mechanisms to deal with errant organizations. So, Sundance, please do your homework before spouting such drivel. There are bad companies out there, sure. But the workers comp market offers a proven mechanism to help weed them out. Otherwise, they become non-competitive, as their cost of doing business rises dramatically, versus the market.
While this may not be a perfect system, the government has a proven track record of failure on nearly everything it touches. Failure.
How short our memory and how narrow our vision. Remember that corporations were responsible for sucking the lifeblood out of our nation’s economy for the benefit of a few. Wall Street seems to still be chugging along raping our country while Main Street is underwater. Government and business are only as effective as the the competency and morality of its leaders.
How right you are! I was just wondering today as I heard about all the bonuses being paid at General Motors–how must all of the dealers put out of business by the Obama administration (for not donating to their campaign) were feeling about bonuses now being thrown around? There are bad actors in all arenas. Don’t insult us by pretending they only exist on the side that you don’t agree with.
@ Brokette, thanks for confirming idiocracy does exist. Thanks, you made my day.
February 11, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Brokette says:
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Oh, I know. Let’s put those dirty rotten dealers out of business as a cost savings and then pay bonuses which (in some cases) equal 50% of the employees’ annual salary. Makes perfect sense to me.
February 11, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Common Sense says:
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I don’t think you get it. We gave the auto industry OUR money and they did what they thought was necessary to return to profitability. I was actually in favor of letting them fail, but then again I may be one of those “irresponsible vote whores”…
February 11, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Brokette says:
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When in doubt, call your opponent stupid. Nice mantra, Common. Why would I give MY money to a corporation who’d run itself into the ground with the help of its self-centered union workforce to let them do “what they thought was necessary to return to profitability?” THAT is “idiocracy”.
OSHA does more than just prevent on the job injuries. For example I helped a local grocer out by referring him to OSHA. He ran a small store located next to a nail salon. The nail salon had no ventilation, and the chemical fumes were so heavy in the adjacent grocery store that your eyes watered after 30 seconds of being in there. He called OSHA and now he can run a store without breathing in harmful chemicals for 12 hours a day.
Not all regulation is bad. I personally am glad that we have agencies out there making sure heavy industrial organizations are not allowed to pollute our land and water willy nilly. I am glad that there is at least *some* effort to control conflict minerals. Your new Gadget 9000 doesn’t seem as cool when you consider the possibility that real people died to get the rare metal needed to make it.
I do not think businesses should be over-regulated, nor should regulation be overly complex. Regulation also creates the potential for corruption. But we should’t start thinking that all regulation is bad and that less regulation will always bring about a positive result.
And “Fwank”ly (sorry can’t help myself), many consider Dodd-Frank as needing bigger teeth, especially when you think about how close unbridled and, more importantly, unregulated greed brought us to the brink of disaster.
“Business” (whatever that means) just wants to run in a common sense manner with high-efficiency unencumbered by nonsensical government regulations that serve no useful purpose.
Hey, we all know jobs are more important than clean air, drinking water etc. EPA is just a bunch whiners, its not like we have the highest cancer occurrence ratio in world…
It amazes me that in the same breath, corporations tell us that their only duty is to generate as much profit as possible for their shareholders; and that social responsibility is not a requirement for corporations. At the same time they acknowledge that protecting the interests of the citizens of this country is not their responsiblity, they decry government regulation.
If the government won’t represent the interests of it’s citizens, who will?
That assumes these government regulations would actually be in the best interest of citizens. The federal governments failures are myriad and innumerable. This is generally what happens when it is lawyers and worthless beuracrats, who couldn’t survive with their own businesses or in the marketplace (or else they wouldn’t be scamming our hard earned tax dollars as a living), much less know how to tell others how to run their companies, making the rules.
Frankly, I am getting very tired of hearing that the government never does anything right. the fact that the feds (and somewhat, the states) are the only bastion standing between the citizens and the potentially egregious abuses by large corporations in work safety, consumer safety, product testing, emmissions control really aggravates some of you. The REAL issue is to retain the protective regulations and expunge the busy work ones, which I am sure Issa will ignore as he panders to the GOP alleged political base.
Bluntly, why shouldn’t there be a consunmer protection agency? what with corporations now anonymously contributing to our elections and affecting them with their millions in addition to the expensive lobbying programs they already have, who will stand for the little guy?
The WC argument as the ultimate control mechanism for worker safety that Mike N launches is specious; as a WC underwriter for decades, I have seen total abuses of this system (on both sides, I might add) with numerous ways of getting around the high mod that have nothing to do with improved worker safety.
The EPA is out of fashion by most of the GOP, but I will tell you that breathing in coal dust, sulphur fumes, and other harmful gasses is no picnic, from one who lives in the shadow of coal fired energy plants. And if it declares some little lizard endangered as a way of saving the land from fracking or from cutting the old growth forest, I will gladly chain myself to a tree. the idea that private companies can pollute and despoil is so 19th century.
Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, why doesn’t Issa use this opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff? Keep the good stuff and get rid of the busy work stuff. this initiative is also supposed to emphasize regs that impede job production or cause job loss; let’s keep that in mind, and let’s use this opportunity to make RATIONAL and REASONED decisions, not ones driven by political expediency or pre campaign rhetoric.
To those who decry govt regs in toto I suppose you want to go back to the days of Jurgis Rutkis, huh? Get over it.
Yesterday it was announced that not even NASA engineers could find anything electronically wrong with Toyotas that would’ve cause the accidental acceleration. Given the damage our government “regulations” has wrought on Toyota, we’re fortunate that they have no recourse to sue us for the folly of the statements made by various anti-business politicians. This was a HUGE debacle and netted nothing other than the financial damage suffered by a company employing thousands of “the little people”. Great job!
Interesting that you used government engineers as the ultimate experts.
February 11, 2011 at 4:28 pm
ComradeAnon says:
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What damage was caused and what govt regulations caused them?
February 14, 2011 at 1:28 pm
xena says:
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I did hear sadly on the news that at one dealership, the wrong floor mats were put into a Toyota, they belonged to a different vehicle that was also be serviced at the same time. This mistake did cause the gas peddle to stick, and this human error cost the lives of 4 people.
February 11, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Observer says:
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Big government and bureaucrats are responsible for much of the problem we have in business. EPA should be the first to be reigned in. They are trying to implement CAP & Trade before the bill is even passed by Executive Order. All this does is stifle many businesses making it much harder to operate. It also kills jobs because the business can’t hire with all these oppressive regulations.
Regulations kills jobs? Your answer is to remove regulation and kill the workers and environment instead? Smart. Very smart.
NASA did not find anything electronically wrong, but concluded that fault was in poor designed floor mats and accelarator pedals. Whether it was electronic or not, the incidents were real and Toyota was at fault. Gov’t did not clamp down on Toyota because of an electronics problem, but because of the actual problem, whatever its causes, that Toyota was blaming on driver error (guess only Toyota drivers are clutzy) and not taking responsibility for.
Obama put auto dealers out of work because they did not contribute to the Obama Administration campaign? Brokette, administrations don’t campaign. Auto companies put dealers out of work as a cost cutting measure. Is Obama at fault for not trying to step in and stop them? You do realize that he couldn’t do that, don’t you? You do realize that you do not want the government to have power to do so, don’t you?
February 11, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Brokette says:
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When politicians stand up and say, “People should not be driving Toyotas,” do you think they should just be allowed to skate in spite of the financial damage their statements cause? If you’re going to hold “business” strictly liable, it would be nice to put that shoe on the other foot and hold irresponsible vote whores accountable for the damage THEY do. I’m just saying……..
February 11, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Amazed says:
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Gee, I haven’t seen this many Federal Government workers blog on an Insurance site before. One would almost think the government was wonderful for all the things they are doing for us. They are all about regulating/controlling anything and everything from cradle to grave which only leads to complete subservience to the State. Kind of like the book 1984.
Are you Karl Rove or Karl Marx? This country is gradually going down the road to Socialism/Marxism under this President and Congress. Why do you think the folks handed the Progressive/Democrats their head in the last election. We don’t want the big spending Socialist entitlement programs that are bankrupting the country to the tune of 14 Trillion with a T. The country is broke and the President is still talking “Investment”/Spending. No government has ever spent their way to prosperity, only bankruptcy.
this country is far away from approaching a socialist/Marxist system. Where were your complaints about the deficit during the bush administration when it moved from surplush to deficit?
In light of the amounts spent to remove dems from office, and the actual results received, no one handed any one’s head to anyone. These midterm results could have been predicted the day Obama was inaugurated. What happened in 2010 is not much different from 1982 when Saint Ron had his midterm elections.
Amazing take on the elections Karl. The Election was very devastating to the Progressive Socialists triumverate of Pelosi/Reid/Obama. I think the President actually called it a “shellacking”. 63 seats in the House and several in the Senate. 23 more Senators are up for re-election in 12 and the Senate should change hands then. In the meantime, the House is in a position to reign in spending and defund Obamacare. I think that is real progress.
May have been devastating to the triumvirate you name, but I consider myself a progressive, and I was not devastated. A little revolution now and then is good.
Now all the sideline jeerers are in the game and it is time for them to produce. It is your narrative that has progressives for big government, it is not the reality of situation. Spending has to be reigned in and revenues need to be increased. There is no argument on that, the methods to be used to acheive this is the issue.
Exactly, I am just hoping Fox won’t reuse lower thirds and 3d graphics from the Bush days. I like Fox, but they are a bit on the cheap side of things. At least they could spice them up a bit, it will make the transition to being pro big government that much easier.
We really WANT things like clean air, drinkable water, reasonably safe workplaces and preventing horrible atrocities like genocide, but GOSH they are so darn expensive!
HOW ABOUT WE STOP SPENDING A TRILLION DOLLARS EVERY YEAR ON WEAPONS
Matt, when have we had genocide in this country? We already have cleaner air in most of the country than we did 20 years ago because industry has had to move offshore. Catalytic converters have reduced pollution from vehicles tremendously. Safe workplaces are not because of OSHA doing such a wonderful job. The Insurance Industry, particularly Workers Compensation carriers have helped many thousands of businesses improve workplace safety. Yes, Defense needs to be cut in some weapons systems that are not really needed. We actually need to cut every major department of the Federal Government to get the budget under some control. It is far too big and unreponsive not to mention wasteful and too expensive.
OSHA and the EPA are brought and paid for. Everyone that thinks different is a moron. They makes more mistakes and excuses for their actions plus get by with it. Get hurt on the job and you will find out what I mean.
If you get hurt on the job, Workers Compensation is supposed to take care of the medical and lost time and in concert with the treating physician, return the employee to work at the earliest date. Many times, the employee seeks to milk the system and stay off work as long as possible. We have an entitlement society now and some employees do this and this drives up the Employers cost on their coverage. OSHA is one of those bureaucratic nightmares that needs to be cut way back or eliminated.
Business just wants to cut corners on worker safety and pollution to squeeze out a few extra bucks profit. The rest of the world be damned.
That is a foolish statement, made by someone who has obviously never run a business. Employees, much like clients, cost far more to obtain than to keep. Sunk costs with new employees include training, HR costs, and huge administrative overhead. At the same time, with government mandated workers comp insurance, there is also a HUGE price to be paid for on-the-job injuries. A company with a high Ex-Mod will pay enormously for the same insurance their neighbor or competitor got for 1/2 the price. And the difference easily becomes tens of thousands, even for a small organization with only a few employees.
And when one takes into account the rising cost of healthcare (which is essentially what workers comp initially takes care of), the delta between premiums of compliant companies with great track records, versus employers who do not take care, is growing astronomically.
In other words, the market already has economic mechanisms to deal with errant organizations. So, Sundance, please do your homework before spouting such drivel. There are bad companies out there, sure. But the workers comp market offers a proven mechanism to help weed them out. Otherwise, they become non-competitive, as their cost of doing business rises dramatically, versus the market.
While this may not be a perfect system, the government has a proven track record of failure on nearly everything it touches. Failure.
How short our memory and how narrow our vision. Remember that corporations were responsible for sucking the lifeblood out of our nation’s economy for the benefit of a few. Wall Street seems to still be chugging along raping our country while Main Street is underwater. Government and business are only as effective as the the competency and morality of its leaders.
How right you are! I was just wondering today as I heard about all the bonuses being paid at General Motors–how must all of the dealers put out of business by the Obama administration (for not donating to their campaign) were feeling about bonuses now being thrown around? There are bad actors in all arenas. Don’t insult us by pretending they only exist on the side that you don’t agree with.
@ Brokette, thanks for confirming idiocracy does exist. Thanks, you made my day.
Oh, I know. Let’s put those dirty rotten dealers out of business as a cost savings and then pay bonuses which (in some cases) equal 50% of the employees’ annual salary. Makes perfect sense to me.
I don’t think you get it. We gave the auto industry OUR money and they did what they thought was necessary to return to profitability. I was actually in favor of letting them fail, but then again I may be one of those “irresponsible vote whores”…
When in doubt, call your opponent stupid. Nice mantra, Common. Why would I give MY money to a corporation who’d run itself into the ground with the help of its self-centered union workforce to let them do “what they thought was necessary to return to profitability?” THAT is “idiocracy”.
OSHA does more than just prevent on the job injuries. For example I helped a local grocer out by referring him to OSHA. He ran a small store located next to a nail salon. The nail salon had no ventilation, and the chemical fumes were so heavy in the adjacent grocery store that your eyes watered after 30 seconds of being in there. He called OSHA and now he can run a store without breathing in harmful chemicals for 12 hours a day.
Not all regulation is bad. I personally am glad that we have agencies out there making sure heavy industrial organizations are not allowed to pollute our land and water willy nilly. I am glad that there is at least *some* effort to control conflict minerals. Your new Gadget 9000 doesn’t seem as cool when you consider the possibility that real people died to get the rare metal needed to make it.
I do not think businesses should be over-regulated, nor should regulation be overly complex. Regulation also creates the potential for corruption. But we should’t start thinking that all regulation is bad and that less regulation will always bring about a positive result.
And “Fwank”ly (sorry can’t help myself), many consider Dodd-Frank as needing bigger teeth, especially when you think about how close unbridled and, more importantly, unregulated greed brought us to the brink of disaster.
“Business” (whatever that means) just wants to run in a common sense manner with high-efficiency unencumbered by nonsensical government regulations that serve no useful purpose.
Hey, we all know jobs are more important than clean air, drinking water etc. EPA is just a bunch whiners, its not like we have the highest cancer occurrence ratio in world…
It amazes me that in the same breath, corporations tell us that their only duty is to generate as much profit as possible for their shareholders; and that social responsibility is not a requirement for corporations. At the same time they acknowledge that protecting the interests of the citizens of this country is not their responsiblity, they decry government regulation.
If the government won’t represent the interests of it’s citizens, who will?
That assumes these government regulations would actually be in the best interest of citizens. The federal governments failures are myriad and innumerable. This is generally what happens when it is lawyers and worthless beuracrats, who couldn’t survive with their own businesses or in the marketplace (or else they wouldn’t be scamming our hard earned tax dollars as a living), much less know how to tell others how to run their companies, making the rules.
Frankly, I am getting very tired of hearing that the government never does anything right. the fact that the feds (and somewhat, the states) are the only bastion standing between the citizens and the potentially egregious abuses by large corporations in work safety, consumer safety, product testing, emmissions control really aggravates some of you. The REAL issue is to retain the protective regulations and expunge the busy work ones, which I am sure Issa will ignore as he panders to the GOP alleged political base.
Bluntly, why shouldn’t there be a consunmer protection agency? what with corporations now anonymously contributing to our elections and affecting them with their millions in addition to the expensive lobbying programs they already have, who will stand for the little guy?
The WC argument as the ultimate control mechanism for worker safety that Mike N launches is specious; as a WC underwriter for decades, I have seen total abuses of this system (on both sides, I might add) with numerous ways of getting around the high mod that have nothing to do with improved worker safety.
The EPA is out of fashion by most of the GOP, but I will tell you that breathing in coal dust, sulphur fumes, and other harmful gasses is no picnic, from one who lives in the shadow of coal fired energy plants. And if it declares some little lizard endangered as a way of saving the land from fracking or from cutting the old growth forest, I will gladly chain myself to a tree. the idea that private companies can pollute and despoil is so 19th century.
Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, why doesn’t Issa use this opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff? Keep the good stuff and get rid of the busy work stuff. this initiative is also supposed to emphasize regs that impede job production or cause job loss; let’s keep that in mind, and let’s use this opportunity to make RATIONAL and REASONED decisions, not ones driven by political expediency or pre campaign rhetoric.
To those who decry govt regs in toto I suppose you want to go back to the days of Jurgis Rutkis, huh? Get over it.
Yesterday it was announced that not even NASA engineers could find anything electronically wrong with Toyotas that would’ve cause the accidental acceleration. Given the damage our government “regulations” has wrought on Toyota, we’re fortunate that they have no recourse to sue us for the folly of the statements made by various anti-business politicians. This was a HUGE debacle and netted nothing other than the financial damage suffered by a company employing thousands of “the little people”. Great job!
Interesting that you used government engineers as the ultimate experts.
What damage was caused and what govt regulations caused them?
I did hear sadly on the news that at one dealership, the wrong floor mats were put into a Toyota, they belonged to a different vehicle that was also be serviced at the same time. This mistake did cause the gas peddle to stick, and this human error cost the lives of 4 people.
Big government and bureaucrats are responsible for much of the problem we have in business. EPA should be the first to be reigned in. They are trying to implement CAP & Trade before the bill is even passed by Executive Order. All this does is stifle many businesses making it much harder to operate. It also kills jobs because the business can’t hire with all these oppressive regulations.
Regulations kills jobs? Your answer is to remove regulation and kill the workers and environment instead? Smart. Very smart.
NASA did not find anything electronically wrong, but concluded that fault was in poor designed floor mats and accelarator pedals. Whether it was electronic or not, the incidents were real and Toyota was at fault. Gov’t did not clamp down on Toyota because of an electronics problem, but because of the actual problem, whatever its causes, that Toyota was blaming on driver error (guess only Toyota drivers are clutzy) and not taking responsibility for.
Obama put auto dealers out of work because they did not contribute to the Obama Administration campaign? Brokette, administrations don’t campaign. Auto companies put dealers out of work as a cost cutting measure. Is Obama at fault for not trying to step in and stop them? You do realize that he couldn’t do that, don’t you? You do realize that you do not want the government to have power to do so, don’t you?
When politicians stand up and say, “People should not be driving Toyotas,” do you think they should just be allowed to skate in spite of the financial damage their statements cause? If you’re going to hold “business” strictly liable, it would be nice to put that shoe on the other foot and hold irresponsible vote whores accountable for the damage THEY do. I’m just saying……..
Gee, I haven’t seen this many Federal Government workers blog on an Insurance site before. One would almost think the government was wonderful for all the things they are doing for us. They are all about regulating/controlling anything and everything from cradle to grave which only leads to complete subservience to the State. Kind of like the book 1984.
Actually, the government you fear is kind of like the book 1984, not the government we have in reality.
Check in every now and then, reality is a good place.
Are you Karl Rove or Karl Marx? This country is gradually going down the road to Socialism/Marxism under this President and Congress. Why do you think the folks handed the Progressive/Democrats their head in the last election. We don’t want the big spending Socialist entitlement programs that are bankrupting the country to the tune of 14 Trillion with a T. The country is broke and the President is still talking “Investment”/Spending. No government has ever spent their way to prosperity, only bankruptcy.
this country is far away from approaching a socialist/Marxist system. Where were your complaints about the deficit during the bush administration when it moved from surplush to deficit?
In light of the amounts spent to remove dems from office, and the actual results received, no one handed any one’s head to anyone. These midterm results could have been predicted the day Obama was inaugurated. What happened in 2010 is not much different from 1982 when Saint Ron had his midterm elections.
Amazing take on the elections Karl. The Election was very devastating to the Progressive Socialists triumverate of Pelosi/Reid/Obama. I think the President actually called it a “shellacking”. 63 seats in the House and several in the Senate. 23 more Senators are up for re-election in 12 and the Senate should change hands then. In the meantime, the House is in a position to reign in spending and defund Obamacare. I think that is real progress.
May have been devastating to the triumvirate you name, but I consider myself a progressive, and I was not devastated. A little revolution now and then is good.
Now all the sideline jeerers are in the game and it is time for them to produce. It is your narrative that has progressives for big government, it is not the reality of situation. Spending has to be reigned in and revenues need to be increased. There is no argument on that, the methods to be used to acheive this is the issue.
I expect we will see a change of tune if a Republican wins the Presidency in 2012.
Back to Government = GOOD!
The tune will be an exact opposite of the one that has been sung in the past 2 years.
Exactly, I am just hoping Fox won’t reuse lower thirds and 3d graphics from the Bush days. I like Fox, but they are a bit on the cheap side of things. At least they could spice them up a bit, it will make the transition to being pro big government that much easier.
We really WANT things like clean air, drinkable water, reasonably safe workplaces and preventing horrible atrocities like genocide, but GOSH they are so darn expensive!
HOW ABOUT WE STOP SPENDING A TRILLION DOLLARS EVERY YEAR ON WEAPONS
Matt, when have we had genocide in this country? We already have cleaner air in most of the country than we did 20 years ago because industry has had to move offshore. Catalytic converters have reduced pollution from vehicles tremendously. Safe workplaces are not because of OSHA doing such a wonderful job. The Insurance Industry, particularly Workers Compensation carriers have helped many thousands of businesses improve workplace safety. Yes, Defense needs to be cut in some weapons systems that are not really needed. We actually need to cut every major department of the Federal Government to get the budget under some control. It is far too big and unreponsive not to mention wasteful and too expensive.
OSHA and the EPA are brought and paid for. Everyone that thinks different is a moron. They makes more mistakes and excuses for their actions plus get by with it. Get hurt on the job and you will find out what I mean.
If you get hurt on the job, Workers Compensation is supposed to take care of the medical and lost time and in concert with the treating physician, return the employee to work at the earliest date. Many times, the employee seeks to milk the system and stay off work as long as possible. We have an entitlement society now and some employees do this and this drives up the Employers cost on their coverage. OSHA is one of those bureaucratic nightmares that needs to be cut way back or eliminated.