I’m From the Government... I’m Here to Help

Healthcare Is Broke… What Do You Say, Let’s Fix It

One thing most Americans agree on is that our health care system is broken. It needs an overhaul. Lets look at what we have. Then maybe we should consider what we can spend. Throw money at the problem…     Some people believe the answer is more money from the District of Columbia. We know DC dollars equal … Read more

The Warren Approach… This time it’s Guns

Elizabeth Warren wants gun control. She will use any means necessary to get it. Her latest tactic will tax gun makers at 30% on firearms, 50% on ammunition. Warren says her plan centers on reducing the number of gun deaths. Interestingly, she is not interested in murders by other causes. She has no proposal for … Read more

Big Tech cuts off the money supply

Pelosi Claims Control of Free Speech

Social media is becoming decidedly unsociable. There is a lot of misinformation on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But that is only one issue. Another social media issue is users scumming, snubbing, bullying or shunning one another. It is quite another when the platforms censor and control the users. It is a third when, … Read more

Drug Regulation

Rarely are congressional hearings due to a problem coming full circle. But recently Senator Grassley dragged executives from seven top pharmaceutical companies before a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Ostensibly he was trying to clear the “secrecy” behind how companies set prices. Lawmakers frequently call for increased transparency and legislative oversight of healthcare and especially pharmaceuticals. … Read more

Being Outed As A Conservative

What causing political change? In America today the political landscape is shifting. That is the natural result of polarization. The underlying truth is that over the last few decades a billion people worldwide have lifted themselves out of poverty. This happened because capitalism was deployed with globalization of markets. The greatest benefits accrued in China … Read more

Has Mr. Trump Kept His Promise? Fewer Federal Regulations

In Mr. Obama’s last year in office, he set a record. His administration added over 95,894 pages to the Federal Register. In 2017 Mr. Trump added 61,308. The lowest number since Bill Clinton. In 2018, The Donald’s team added 68,082. Still a record low. But why so many? Didn’t Mr. Trump promise that for every new regulation the pencil pushers had to get rid of two?

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Economic Malpractice

We continue the discussion with Greg Moore from Americans for Prosperity on Government meddling with medical care and coverage and the economic malpractice that results–fewer startups, employment stagnation, wage deflation, and other symptoms of this regulatory disease, including those specific to New Hampshire.  

Power Play

We explore energy deregulation and its effect on rate payers, power plants and providers, investment, and cost-recovery, with industry expert Susan Olsen. Full podcast here.  

“Bad Luck” – starting to catch up with us?

I have seen the words that some of our Industrial Barons have said – their “business lightening” wouldn’t even flicker today if they had to do it all over again.  But, given a mention of the author who help give rise to our name, I decided to use it all:

FEDEX FOUNDER: I Couldn’t Start Company with Today’s Economy, Regulations.

Last month, a CNBC headlined noted, “Subway ‘Wouldn’t Exist’ If Started Today Due to Regulations: Founder Deluca.”

In 2011, Bernie Marcus said the same about Home Depot, which he founded.

Or to put it another way:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

“Or as some would say: ‘You didn’t build that,’” Glenn added last year when he quoted Robert Heinlein.

(H/T: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit

Three different industries, three different biz models – all doomed to failure if attempted today?  Do I blame Obama directly?  No.  But we all should examine the Jungle of Regulations that has grown up since those times – the bad luck that will plague, not those of us reaching the end of our careers, our children and theirs.  We are in the middle of the birthing of a government spawned sclerosis that has taken two generations to achieve the current state of growth we see now; 0.1% growth, 0.4% growth in the last two quarters.  Hardly a gift to our offspring, eh?

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On A Path To Less Government or More?

Mind if I smoke a doobie - medical marijuana in New Hampshire
Maggie Hassan says she’d consider supporting Medical Marijuana

Newsmax reports that New Hampshire’s new governor (gag!) Maggie Hassan is open to the idea of legalizing Marijuana.

Pro-pot advocates in New Hampshire are excited about the possibilities.

Medical marijuana, the gateway-drug -policy to broader decriminalization efforts, is generally considered to be an issue with bi-partisan support.  Supporters of legalization at any and every level have also long insisted that the cost to taxpayers of policing pot is excessive.   But when the new governor (gag!) says ‘yeah, we’ll seriously consider support for the right bill’ while some folks are getting ready to pass the big fat doobie, I’m asking myself….”If New Hampshire Democrats are really interested does legal pot in any form put us on a path to more government or less?

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“Obama couldn’t run a lemonade stand”, No Kidding, Who Can?

A fellow Granite Stater said, “Obama couldn’t run a lemonade stand“.  Good for him, I say.  I take his point:  the bumbler in chief is so over his head that he can’t even muster the intellectual skill it takes to even perform a simple grade school task.  But this guy should have used another example like, “Obama can’t fill out the forms that his type’s are forcing us to fill out when we want to brave opening a lemonade stand”.

“Obama couldn’t run a lemonade stand”, yeah, no kidding. Who can?  Well no one can save the most artfully diligent bureaucracy seeking masochist and the well connected.

That statement used to mean something.  It used to impart a negative meaning on subject of the claim.  But it no longer has such a meaning.  No one can run a lemonade stand any more without the proper registration, licenses, fees, permits, and Department of Lemonade Stand approval to ensure that you’re in compliance with registration, licenses, fees, and permits.

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Notable Quotes: Russell Kirk – John Randolph

Law will change, indeed, with the times; but arbitrary intervention in the process, rude revision upon abstract concepts a la French taste, is a short and nasty way to social caducity.  When a people begin to think that they can improve society infinitely by incessant alteration of positive law, nothing remains settled; every right, every … Read more

Turn Your Head And Cough

Looks like the FDA is looking to change how we get our cough syrup.  They are holding a hearing on September 14th to review their fabulous new idea–to require a doctors prescription to get the same cough remedy you currently get over the counter. You would need to go to and pay for a doctor … Read more

Carol…On Helping Small Business

Even as a child, Carol could not keep the train on the tracks

Carol’s good work keeps on rolling in like the smell of low tide on a salty breeze.  Maybe you recall that five ream masterpiece of brevity appropriately mislabeled as health care reform?  Well it came fully equipped with a manifold of other disasters buried inside, one of which was that anyone with business income will have to issue a 1099 for every entity with whom they spend $600.00 or more in goods and services in a calendar year.  And you thought the Health care Castration Bill wasted paper?

 

This creates several problems for small business the biggest of which is the regulatory burden of having to deal with all that extra paperwork.   It will take more time and cost more money just to comply with the rules ‘deemed’ by Section 9006 of Carol-Care.  That amounts to millions  more dollars in lost productivity on left wing busy work that Carol and her ilk have now released from America’s employment engine and diverted into the ice-rimmed, bottomless, suck-hole of the bureaucracy.

So how does that play against Carol’s rhetoric?  Not well.

 

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