What government regulation is REALLY used for

Just ANOTHER Government Fairytale?  

The list below will give you an idea of just how common it is for vested interests to ask for government interference to protect themselves from markets and competition, how easily they get that protection, and how they usually disguise it as "regulation."

The Russian Orthodox Church got a bill through the Russian Parliament prohibiting foreign missionaries because Billy Graham, etc. are luring Russians away from the Russian church. Yeltsin hadn't signed the bill yet. --CNN, July 15, 1993 [The bill or a similar one subsequently became law. -lrw]

"Unable to maintain their government-granted monopoly, the powerful railroad interests turned to government to do the regulating and price-fixing which they were unable to do themselves. In fact, the pressure that induced Congress to enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 did not come from reformers bemoaning abuses by the powerful railroad interests; it came from the railroad interests themselves, asking Congress to shield them against the harsh winds of competition." -- Dan Smoot, "The Business End Of Government"

"Essentially airline regulation was an organized attempt to keep out competition." --Alfred Kahn, chairman and chief architect of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) [CAB was the bureaucracy which regulated airline fares and routes. It was the forerunner of FAA. See "The Great Waldo Pepper."]

"Under the licensing provisions," says Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, "we give the broadcasters an absolute federally supported and sustained monopoly which denies anybody else the right to broadcast who does not have a license." --"The 'Fairness Doctrine': Keep It Buried!" --Jorge Amador, THE PRAGMATIST, Feb. 1994

Bill recasts phone, cable law. Senate [finally] allows firms to offer competing services --Barbara Woller USA TODAY, JUNE 16-18, 1995 front page headlines [emphasis added]

Harrah's New Orleans agreed to pay 19% of its gross earnings to the Parish of New Orleans in return for a guarantee it would be the only land-based casino allowed. ~"We would be competing with the [river] boats right across the road, so, quite candidly, we wanted a monopoly. That's why we're willing to pay so much in taxes." --Ron Lanczycki of Harrah's of New Orleans, New Orleans Channel 6 Close up, 19 June, 1994 ~11:19am EST

Mini-cabs in London are challenging the 300-year monopoly of the 21,000 traditional "black taxis" because of a legal "loop-hole." By law, only traditional black cabs are allowed to pick up passengers signaling from the curb. However limo service, where people call by phone, is OK. With the advent of cellular phones, an agent on the street can now call a non-traditional cab for you on his cellular because then it's legally considered a limo. The traditional cabs' trade organization is challenging the practice. --CNN, 25 Mar 1994

Central Bankers (CBs) and the modern banking system are by far the most egregious vested interest users of government interference. In fact, since governments create them and only allow one, CBs couldn't exist without it.

And then there's this government regulation that protects banks from competition among themselves - - -

LEGAL RESTRICTIONS ON DEPOSITS

As part of the overall pattern of regulation and supervision of banking, it has been customary for state and federal authorities to draw specific lines of demarcation separating the time deposit from the demand deposit functions and to place restrictions on the payment of interest to customers. This has been especially true since the era of the Great Depression. Before that, it was common practice for banks to offer interest on demand deposits. This led to aggressive competition that often took the form of bidding wars, ... --Eric N. Compton, Principles of Banking, (USA: American Bankers Association 1986), p. 118 [At the time Mr. Compton wrote this textbook, he was billed as "Vice President, The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A."]

O.K., since the railroads, airlines, airwaves, casinos, taxi-cabs, banks, and even churches are "regulated" to protect them from us rather than the other way around, it's clear the myth that government regulation protects "we the people" is just another hypocritical government fairytale. 

Below is just one example of how government regulation actually works to, ah, "protect" us in real life - - - 

In 2018, despite ass-u-me_d FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) oversight, there were two instances when the Boeing 737 Max crashed, killing all aboard in both cases.
After the fact, the FAA, with one of the best reputations for regulation in the world, finally grounded the 737 Max. So the FAA was doing it's job, right?

RALPH NADER: ...the FAA knew a lot more than it made out publicly, that it became an abdicator, under pressure from Congress of past years, instead of a regulator. ...in December 2018, after the Indonesian crash, there was a risk assessment by the FAA that these planes - ...the 737 MAX - would have 15 crashes over the 40-year life of the plane, taking 2,900 lives. And that was not released by the FAA, month after month of cover-up. The two people who are responsible for the FAA's abdication Elwell and Ali Bahrami, are still there in the FAA. ...And the board of directors for Boeing, that presided over these trails of criminal negligence and the failure to attend to aerodynamic stability, they're still there. And the CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, paid millions and millions of dollars a year, he's still there.... --Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader Wants a Total Recall of Deadly Planes

But with its stirling reputation, FAA just had a bad year and will straighten things out. Won't they? 

You can judge yourself from past experience. This past experience as explained by whistle blower and Dept. of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo after the 1996 Valujet crash in a Florida swamp -- twenty-four years ago - - -

MARY SCHIAVO: The FAA is known as "the tombstone agency" because it will not make changes until there has been a major crash, until there has been a major loss of life.... The FAA is a safety agency and their sole purpose should be to prevent accidents. And the sad thing is, that in the last ten years they [FAA] have been cited by the National Transportation Safety Board as a factor or a causal factor, one of the contributing factors in some 120 crashes. ...In the instance of FAA oversight and inspection, these same issues were raised in hearing back in 1986 and change was promised and there were Congressional hearings and everybody went up to the hill and made a lot of promises and everyone thought everything was fixed. We had hearings again in 1991. Again everybody went up to the Hill, it was Washington politics with a small p. Promises were made. Everybody went away from the hearings feeling happy and the cameras were off and here we are in 1996, five years later, and the same issues are there again. Unfortunately it's kind of Washington at work and it does not do much to instill comfort and security in the traveling public. --Dept. of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo, Night Line, June 24, 1996

14 days later on July 8, 1996, Mary Schaivo submitted a letter of resignation from her position, returning to civilian life amidtst attacks from Congress accusing her of "airing dirty laundry in public."  



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