Im not sure how much I agree with this article, but I think I agree that while the individual regulations make sense in isolation, their sum adds up a lot, and only larger players can afford it....
Im not sure how much I agree with this article, but I think I agree that while the individual regulations make sense in isolation, their sum adds up a lot, and only larger players can afford it. Im torn on how valuable small buisnesses are for their own sake, though, and suspicious of giving them exceptions, as in my experience they can be just as underhanded as big ones. However, Im curious to see what others who might be better informed think of this.
BTW, the author has a vendetta against people allowing untrusted javascript in the browser. The tab name will change if you tab away without disabling JS.
You might enjoy this article as well. The opening two paragraphs are quite compelling: It’s about labor regulations specifically, but can be extrapolated to regulations in general. Most economists...
You might enjoy this article as well. The opening two paragraphs are quite compelling:
In recent decades, Europe has fallen behind the United States. In 2000, incomes in the original six members of the European Union were just 10 percent behind Americans. Today, they are 20 percent lower. One factor behind this has been the lack of innovation in European business. To a striking extent, Europe lacks tech giants like Google, Meta and Amazon. But even in industries in which it has traditionally excelled, like carmaking, Europe has failed to keep up. Tesla is now worth more than the next nine largest carmakers in the world put together. Six American cities are now served by robotaxis made by Waymo. Understanding why Europe doesn’t have Google is important. Understanding why it doesn’t have a Tesla is existential.
There are many partial explanations: high energy prices, expensive housing, excessive proceduralism, high taxes, extractive interest groups, and politicians with a penchant for degrowth. But all of these problems are true of California as well, which is nonetheless home to Waymo and birthed Tesla before it moved its headquarters to Texas in 2021. Explanations often blame Europe’s lack of research spending, but governments spend more on research in Europe than in America. And just seven companies globally – Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Samsung, and Huawei – spend more on research each year than Volkswagen.
It’s about labor regulations specifically, but can be extrapolated to regulations in general. Most economists accept that regulations impose real costs on firms, that poorly designed or accumulated regulation can significantly inhibit entry and growth, and that certain specific regulatory regimes (licensing, land use) inhibit growth in practice, though perhaps not in theory.
The trick, of course, is defining “poorly designed” and/or “accumulated.” Still, the claim that the Western world and Europe, in particular, are over-regulated in general (while still being underregulated [my opinion] in a few areas) is pretty defensible.
I couldn't help but scoff at those two paragraphs. I don't mean to be rude, but I will be rebutting quite a lot of the claims in the posted snippet. Disclaimer: I'm an American by birth. Do excuse...
Exemplary
I couldn't help but scoff at those two paragraphs. I don't mean to be rude, but I will be rebutting quite a lot of the claims in the posted snippet.
Disclaimer: I'm an American by birth. Do excuse me for defending Europe from this late-stage-capitalist slander.
In 2000, incomes in the original six members of the European Union were just 10 percent behind Americans. Today, they are 20 percent lower.
Mean? Median? Does it matter at all when looking instead at quality of life? Incomes are only useful in-so-far as they provide you a quality of life; the raw number mostly doesn't matter. The life the income can provide you is what matters.
I'd argue that most Americans, under Trump's idiocy, are generally worse off than most Europeans. Higher incomes don't offset nation-wide insanity.
One factor behind this has been the lack of innovation in European business.
This is a claim that gets repeated frequently, but what the fuck does "innovation" even mean nowadays? Does something like Ozempic count? Or is it only "tech" ad-tech companies? Chatbot companies? Does "innovation" mean "stock market goes up"? If it does, I grant you that the USA has manipulated the stock market to hell and back, what with reintroducing stock buybacks (which used to be illegal as they are blatant stock price manipulation).
Tesla is now worth more than the next nine largest carmakers in the world put together.
Tesla is a meme stock. Pretending that it is a serious economic indicator only serves to identify the author as a joke. Observing Tesla's car business, they are in a total global collapse. Their competitors are mostly doing okay (but are legislatively insulated from BYD, which is blowing everyone out of the water, including Tesla).
Six American cities are now served by robotaxis made by Waymo.
95%+ of European cities are served by good public transit, which does a much better job than Waymo at a much lower per-trip cost. Pretending that cars are a good way to traverse cities is pure nonsense.
Understanding why it doesn’t have a Tesla is existential.
Meme stocks are not existential.
And just seven companies globally – Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Samsung, and Huawei – spend more on research each year than Volkswagen.
No shit? Gas/diesel cars are a solved problem. Volkswagen's primary need for research is the move to electric vehicles (which they are doing), and their limit is their available capital. Cars are not a high margin business; Volkswagen needs to be much more careful, per dollar, than the high-margin ad-tech companies do.
Also, "research spend" is a very nebulous term; bog standard software development is considered R&D by most jurisdictions. So it makes sense that companies that make their money via software development are also the ones who have a big number in the "R&D" box.
Yeahhhh i don't love the linked article either. I do think Europe has some interesting problems and I don't think any bureaucracy is perfect, but I don't think any of those arguments really track...
Yeahhhh i don't love the linked article either. I do think Europe has some interesting problems and I don't think any bureaucracy is perfect, but I don't think any of those arguments really track well.
Not even mentioned by you, but fundamentally the US has had a gigantic first mover advantage ever since silicon valley sprung up. You can argue about how or why, but "just make your own" isn't really viable for reasons that aren't that related to bureaucracy (or it's certainly down the list of problems).
It's worth noting for example that the research spend of many if not all of those companies mentioned goes to teams of devs and departments in Europe. Just because the company is HQ'd in Cali (or you know, Delaware...) doesn't mean that there isn't a huge portion of innovation coming out of Europe.
A lot of the cutting edge work on financial transactions research, from code to hardware, stems from Europe. They did plenty to encourage that growth, they just don't get credit when you skew the metrics like this.
The first mover advantage is totally fair and a good point. I think there's a pretty strong argument that labor flexibility is part of why silicon valley could happen in the US in the first place,...
The first mover advantage is totally fair and a good point. I think there's a pretty strong argument that labor flexibility is part of why silicon valley could happen in the US in the first place, but that's not provable so fair enough.
I'm less convinced by your argument that innovation under US companies in Europe disproves the fundamental point. First, the author's not arguing that innovation doesn't happen in Europe, he's arguing that the character of that innovation is structurally different in a meaningful way (refining a process vs. making bets). Second, the fact that it's happening under US companies is hugely relevant. In just the same way, I would be skeptical of an argument saying that auto manufacturers in the US have completely revolutionized their quality control processes and pointing at the Toyota factory in Georgia.
Did you read the whole article or just those two paragraphs? I ask because you're asking questions about the definition of innovation, income, etc and the author expands on all of that. You might...
Did you read the whole article or just those two paragraphs? I ask because you're asking questions about the definition of innovation, income, etc and the author expands on all of that. You might not agree but it's not like the author didn't think these things.
While I was reading this article at work, my coworker suggested it was time for vape/smoke break. Because he wanted to bitch about a contract he's been working on for at least a couple of weeks....
While I was reading this article at work, my coworker suggested it was time for vape/smoke break. Because he wanted to bitch about a contract he's been working on for at least a couple of weeks. We're US government employees. So this is from the "other side," but I think it's still relevant.
This contract he's working on is just a renewal or execution of an option year. Everything was negotiated a year ago. Nothing new is being added or removed. But he's frustrated because he's having to jump through a million hoops all over again. Do this form, do that form. Then do these ten forms. This one is new; get signatures from this person, and that person. Oh, this isn't good enough even though the other person said it was; explain better what this thing means, then get it re-signed and signed, with an accompanying memo, also signed. Also don't forget to submit it here and here and there. With signatures from these five people. And then work on and submit another memo...
Keep in mind, this contact is worth less than $15k for the year. It's small potatoes. And again, it's not a new service. But it is critical. If we and our teams don't have it, we are dead in the water.
I understand why there's this bureaucracy. As government employees, we're supposed to be good stewards of public money. We need to avoid corruption and kickbacks and bribes. We need to make sure the taxpayer is getting a good deal. We need to avoid even the slightest appearances of impropriety. So oversight is important.
Yet...How much time and effort is the government spending on trying to do these things? My coworker is well paid; we're GS-13s in DC, one of the highest paid localities in the country. How many other higher-paid employees are involved in this oversight? How many people's jobs are only to do these things? FWIW, our job is not to do contracts and purchasing all day. We're IT. He just has a collateral duty of initiating purchases on behalf of our team.
Is it worth all this effort for $15k? Is this juice worth the squeeze? Plus, we still hear about things like insanely marked up restroom soap dispensers and military hardware vaporware where costs have ballooned by millions or even billions.
So I'm generally in agreement with the author. And I too am not some red-blooded libertarian hell-bent on slashing government regulation and bureaucracy. There are many regulations and rules in place for good reason and deserve to remain so. There are regulations we don't have, that maybe we should add.
Obviously my coworker's situation is internal red-tape, so whatever (though how much of "government is too slow!" that average people complain about is attributed to internal red-tape?). But I do think it's worse when it's just citizens who are getting caught up in this whirlwind of bureaucracy. Like the stereotypical DMV experience, for example. Not saying we get rid of it regulations and such, but is there no way to rewrite them so they're less onerous for "the little people?"
Like with all things, it's about balance. But where that dividing line is, I don't know either.
I know very few people who've worked in government who couldn't point you at 1000 things you could optimize/cut, and they're some of the strongest voices I know in removing/simplifying...
I know very few people who've worked in government who couldn't point you at 1000 things you could optimize/cut, and they're some of the strongest voices I know in removing/simplifying regulations. Not so we can get rid of all of them, but so that we can spend money and time enforcing the ones that matter.
One of the better jokes was that only Musk could run a team that would fail to find overspending and wasted effort in the government when you could probably grab any random worker and ask them to show you something that could be easier and spend the next 10 hours trying to escape the room they locked you in for the detailed power point presentation of everything they've been dying to say.
Ok, having read the whole thing, I kind of half agree with half of the conclusions, but their conclusions really aren't well supported. Yes, there is a tendency towards adding bureaucracy rather...
Ok, having read the whole thing, I kind of half agree with half of the conclusions, but their conclusions really aren't well supported. Yes, there is a tendency towards adding bureaucracy rather than taking it away. because we're trying to get an even expectation from everyone I agree wholeheartedly that making large corporations pay taxes like everyone else is good. But taking down regulations isn't the way to do that, it's equitable enforcement of the ones we have.
This is the loop people get stuck in. A lot are being enforce "fairly". You personally just can't afford fair. If you want it to be equitable you need to make it simple, and for a lot of these...
This is the loop people get stuck in. A lot are being enforce "fairly". You personally just can't afford fair.
If you want it to be equitable you need to make it simple, and for a lot of these things simple is what it should have been in the first place.
Regs don't have a shelf life, there's a ton of friction to getting them passed, and they're often used as competitive moats. You get massive regulation bloat that are actually/in the guise of good things (zoning laws are a prime example), and it winds up self selecting for only the people who have the time and money to afford it.
When I ran a business, I had a business attorney, and I needed him for about 3 hours over 10 years. I could afford fair just fine, and it wasn't a hugely successful business. The thing is that the...
When I ran a business, I had a business attorney, and I needed him for about 3 hours over 10 years. I could afford fair just fine, and it wasn't a hugely successful business. The thing is that the very powerful aren't playing fair, and that's the real problem.
Neat? I’m not saying it can’t happen, but you really think every business is dealing with the same laws and limitations you were? I’ve dealt with a lot of small businesses. Zoning laws and hiring...
Neat? I’m not saying it can’t happen, but you really think every business is dealing with the same laws and limitations you were?
I’ve dealt with a lot of small businesses. Zoning laws and hiring laws are a very very big overhead even for groups of 50 depending on your industry. One lawyer is not competitive vs the army of corporate lawyers.
That’s not even getting into industries like government contract where there’s entire sub industries just to meet approval.
This is what a business attorney and an accountant are for. Yes, it's challenging for someone who has never done it before, most things are. But it's the same basic forms every time, and...
This is what a business attorney and an accountant are for. Yes, it's challenging for someone who has never done it before, most things are. But it's the same basic forms every time, and professionals make it easier.
You know who has a lot of those? Large businesses. Regulations aren't "Free", the more you have, the higher the barrier to entry. The higher the barrier to entry, the more advantage you give to...
You know who has a lot of those? Large businesses. Regulations aren't "Free", the more you have, the higher the barrier to entry. The higher the barrier to entry, the more advantage you give to larger corporations who have entire departments dedicated to filling out forms and escalating with a local government.
You know who had those? Me and my single-person business. It wasn't burdensome, nor was it a barrier to entry, beyond knowing that I needed a professional, and being willing to respect what they...
You know who had those? Me and my single-person business. It wasn't burdensome, nor was it a barrier to entry, beyond knowing that I needed a professional, and being willing to respect what they had to say.
So you had no need to deal with HR regs because you were single person. I’m assuming you also didn’t have to deal with larger office space issues or having your team comply with OSHA and things...
So you had no need to deal with HR regs because you were single person.
I’m assuming you also didn’t have to deal with larger office space issues or having your team comply with OSHA and things like SDS sheets for chemicals.
I’m not sure how you’re implying that people with much more difficult burdens “just aren’t respecting or paying their lawyers “.
They do. They can still very much lose because those lawyers can’t compete with the teams of lawyers corporations have to churn through legal hurdles
Im not sure how much I agree with this article, but I think I agree that while the individual regulations make sense in isolation, their sum adds up a lot, and only larger players can afford it. Im torn on how valuable small buisnesses are for their own sake, though, and suspicious of giving them exceptions, as in my experience they can be just as underhanded as big ones. However, Im curious to see what others who might be better informed think of this.
BTW, the author has a vendetta against people allowing untrusted javascript in the browser. The tab name will change if you tab away without disabling JS.
Meta: Should this go in ~society or ~finance?
You might enjoy this article as well. The opening two paragraphs are quite compelling:
It’s about labor regulations specifically, but can be extrapolated to regulations in general. Most economists accept that regulations impose real costs on firms, that poorly designed or accumulated regulation can significantly inhibit entry and growth, and that certain specific regulatory regimes (licensing, land use) inhibit growth in practice, though perhaps not in theory.
The trick, of course, is defining “poorly designed” and/or “accumulated.” Still, the claim that the Western world and Europe, in particular, are over-regulated in general (while still being underregulated [my opinion] in a few areas) is pretty defensible.
I couldn't help but scoff at those two paragraphs. I don't mean to be rude, but I will be rebutting quite a lot of the claims in the posted snippet.
Disclaimer: I'm an American by birth. Do excuse me for defending Europe from this late-stage-capitalist slander.
Mean? Median? Does it matter at all when looking instead at quality of life? Incomes are only useful in-so-far as they provide you a quality of life; the raw number mostly doesn't matter. The life the income can provide you is what matters.
I'd argue that most Americans, under Trump's idiocy, are generally worse off than most Europeans. Higher incomes don't offset nation-wide insanity.
This is a claim that gets repeated frequently, but what the fuck does "innovation" even mean nowadays? Does something like Ozempic count? Or is it only
"tech"ad-tech companies? Chatbot companies? Does "innovation" mean "stock market goes up"? If it does, I grant you that the USA has manipulated the stock market to hell and back, what with reintroducing stock buybacks (which used to be illegal as they are blatant stock price manipulation).Tesla is a meme stock. Pretending that it is a serious economic indicator only serves to identify the author as a joke. Observing Tesla's car business, they are in a total global collapse. Their competitors are mostly doing okay (but are legislatively insulated from BYD, which is blowing everyone out of the water, including Tesla).
95%+ of European cities are served by good public transit, which does a much better job than Waymo at a much lower per-trip cost. Pretending that cars are a good way to traverse cities is pure nonsense.
Meme stocks are not existential.
No shit? Gas/diesel cars are a solved problem. Volkswagen's primary need for research is the move to electric vehicles (which they are doing), and their limit is their available capital. Cars are not a high margin business; Volkswagen needs to be much more careful, per dollar, than the high-margin ad-tech companies do.
Also, "research spend" is a very nebulous term; bog standard software development is considered R&D by most jurisdictions. So it makes sense that companies that make their money via software development are also the ones who have a big number in the "R&D" box.
Yeahhhh i don't love the linked article either. I do think Europe has some interesting problems and I don't think any bureaucracy is perfect, but I don't think any of those arguments really track well.
Not even mentioned by you, but fundamentally the US has had a gigantic first mover advantage ever since silicon valley sprung up. You can argue about how or why, but "just make your own" isn't really viable for reasons that aren't that related to bureaucracy (or it's certainly down the list of problems).
It's worth noting for example that the research spend of many if not all of those companies mentioned goes to teams of devs and departments in Europe. Just because the company is HQ'd in Cali (or you know, Delaware...) doesn't mean that there isn't a huge portion of innovation coming out of Europe.
A lot of the cutting edge work on financial transactions research, from code to hardware, stems from Europe. They did plenty to encourage that growth, they just don't get credit when you skew the metrics like this.
The first mover advantage is totally fair and a good point. I think there's a pretty strong argument that labor flexibility is part of why silicon valley could happen in the US in the first place, but that's not provable so fair enough.
I'm less convinced by your argument that innovation under US companies in Europe disproves the fundamental point. First, the author's not arguing that innovation doesn't happen in Europe, he's arguing that the character of that innovation is structurally different in a meaningful way (refining a process vs. making bets). Second, the fact that it's happening under US companies is hugely relevant. In just the same way, I would be skeptical of an argument saying that auto manufacturers in the US have completely revolutionized their quality control processes and pointing at the Toyota factory in Georgia.
Did you read the whole article or just those two paragraphs? I ask because you're asking questions about the definition of innovation, income, etc and the author expands on all of that. You might not agree but it's not like the author didn't think these things.
While I was reading this article at work, my coworker suggested it was time for vape/smoke break. Because he wanted to bitch about a contract he's been working on for at least a couple of weeks. We're US government employees. So this is from the "other side," but I think it's still relevant.
This contract he's working on is just a renewal or execution of an option year. Everything was negotiated a year ago. Nothing new is being added or removed. But he's frustrated because he's having to jump through a million hoops all over again. Do this form, do that form. Then do these ten forms. This one is new; get signatures from this person, and that person. Oh, this isn't good enough even though the other person said it was; explain better what this thing means, then get it re-signed and signed, with an accompanying memo, also signed. Also don't forget to submit it here and here and there. With signatures from these five people. And then work on and submit another memo...
Keep in mind, this contact is worth less than $15k for the year. It's small potatoes. And again, it's not a new service. But it is critical. If we and our teams don't have it, we are dead in the water.
I understand why there's this bureaucracy. As government employees, we're supposed to be good stewards of public money. We need to avoid corruption and kickbacks and bribes. We need to make sure the taxpayer is getting a good deal. We need to avoid even the slightest appearances of impropriety. So oversight is important.
Yet...How much time and effort is the government spending on trying to do these things? My coworker is well paid; we're GS-13s in DC, one of the highest paid localities in the country. How many other higher-paid employees are involved in this oversight? How many people's jobs are only to do these things? FWIW, our job is not to do contracts and purchasing all day. We're IT. He just has a collateral duty of initiating purchases on behalf of our team.
Is it worth all this effort for $15k? Is this juice worth the squeeze? Plus, we still hear about things like insanely marked up restroom soap dispensers and military hardware vaporware where costs have ballooned by millions or even billions.
So I'm generally in agreement with the author. And I too am not some red-blooded libertarian hell-bent on slashing government regulation and bureaucracy. There are many regulations and rules in place for good reason and deserve to remain so. There are regulations we don't have, that maybe we should add.
Obviously my coworker's situation is internal red-tape, so whatever (though how much of "government is too slow!" that average people complain about is attributed to internal red-tape?). But I do think it's worse when it's just citizens who are getting caught up in this whirlwind of bureaucracy. Like the stereotypical DMV experience, for example. Not saying we get rid of it regulations and such, but is there no way to rewrite them so they're less onerous for "the little people?"
Like with all things, it's about balance. But where that dividing line is, I don't know either.
I know very few people who've worked in government who couldn't point you at 1000 things you could optimize/cut, and they're some of the strongest voices I know in removing/simplifying regulations. Not so we can get rid of all of them, but so that we can spend money and time enforcing the ones that matter.
One of the better jokes was that only Musk could run a team that would fail to find overspending and wasted effort in the government when you could probably grab any random worker and ask them to show you something that could be easier and spend the next 10 hours trying to escape the room they locked you in for the detailed power point presentation of everything they've been dying to say.
Ok, having read the whole thing, I kind of half agree with half of the conclusions, but their conclusions really aren't well supported. Yes, there is a tendency towards adding bureaucracy rather than taking it away. because we're trying to get an even expectation from everyone I agree wholeheartedly that making large corporations pay taxes like everyone else is good. But taking down regulations isn't the way to do that, it's equitable enforcement of the ones we have.
This is the loop people get stuck in. A lot are being enforce "fairly". You personally just can't afford fair.
If you want it to be equitable you need to make it simple, and for a lot of these things simple is what it should have been in the first place.
Regs don't have a shelf life, there's a ton of friction to getting them passed, and they're often used as competitive moats. You get massive regulation bloat that are actually/in the guise of good things (zoning laws are a prime example), and it winds up self selecting for only the people who have the time and money to afford it.
When I ran a business, I had a business attorney, and I needed him for about 3 hours over 10 years. I could afford fair just fine, and it wasn't a hugely successful business. The thing is that the very powerful aren't playing fair, and that's the real problem.
Neat? I’m not saying it can’t happen, but you really think every business is dealing with the same laws and limitations you were?
I’ve dealt with a lot of small businesses. Zoning laws and hiring laws are a very very big overhead even for groups of 50 depending on your industry. One lawyer is not competitive vs the army of corporate lawyers.
That’s not even getting into industries like government contract where there’s entire sub industries just to meet approval.
This is what a business attorney and an accountant are for. Yes, it's challenging for someone who has never done it before, most things are. But it's the same basic forms every time, and professionals make it easier.
You know who has a lot of those? Large businesses. Regulations aren't "Free", the more you have, the higher the barrier to entry. The higher the barrier to entry, the more advantage you give to larger corporations who have entire departments dedicated to filling out forms and escalating with a local government.
You know who had those? Me and my single-person business. It wasn't burdensome, nor was it a barrier to entry, beyond knowing that I needed a professional, and being willing to respect what they had to say.
So you had no need to deal with HR regs because you were single person.
I’m assuming you also didn’t have to deal with larger office space issues or having your team comply with OSHA and things like SDS sheets for chemicals.
I’m not sure how you’re implying that people with much more difficult burdens “just aren’t respecting or paying their lawyers “.
They do. They can still very much lose because those lawyers can’t compete with the teams of lawyers corporations have to churn through legal hurdles
Yes, just like the author's friend, who was also running a one-man show and was the theoretical spark for this complain-a-thon.