Deregulate!

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Yes, we don't need regulations for capping methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. After all, methane is only 86 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and these emissions, which are a lot higher than previously thought, effectively nullify the advantages of the use of natural gas in combating climate change. 

Thirteen states have sued the Obama administration over the EPA’s new rules for methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The lawsuit, filed by West Virginia and backed by twelve other states, argues that the new rules are unnecessary and would add burdensome costs for oil and gas producers. “This is yet another example of unlawful federal overreach jeopardizing West Virginia jobs and working families,” Morrisey said in a statement. “The rules are a solution in search of a problem and ignore the industry’s success in voluntarily reducing methane emissions from these sources to a 30-year low.”

Last spring, the EPA revised its methane emissions totals for the United States, after discovering that emissions from the oil and gas industry were higher than initially thought. The oil and gas industry produces about a third of total U.S. methane emissions, and is the largest methane-emitting sector in the country. That's bad news for climate change because methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, 86 times more efficient at trapping heat over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide. Studies have shown that the methane emissions associated with natural gas operations effectively nullify the climate benefits of transitioning the energy sector to natural gas-burning power plants, putting it on par with sources like coal in terms of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

EPA's Efforts To Curb Methane Emissions Suffers A Setback As 13 States Sue | ThinkProgress

Since these emissions are rather difficult to detect, let's just leave it to industry, right? What do you think will happen..

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Hahaha, from the deregulators in chief:

Marketers know this is the time to pounce: The summer Olympics are about to start in Brazil, where the recent Zika epidemic started, and 14 mosquito-borne cases of Zika were identified recently in the Miami area, the first in the U.S. So companies and entrepreneurs are capitalizing on Zika fears wherever mosquitoes buzz, hawking questionable products like anti-Zika wristbands and promoting all manner of mosquito repellents for people and pets. "From a marketing point of view, it's a golden opportunity," said Jonathan Day, a University of Florida mosquito expert and researcher.

While some companies are using Zika worries to goose sales of products that could prevent mosquito bites, others are claiming benefits far beyond what regulators have verified. Officials are warning consumers away from ultrasound bug zappers, $20 insecticide-containing wrist and ankle bands such as "Mosquitno," and "Spotz," Citronella-infused stickers that adhere to clothing and supposedly repel mosquitoes for three days. The Federal Trade Commission this spring fined one wristband maker $300,000 for falsely claiming its bands create a five-foot mosquito barrier protecting wearers for days.

Scammers, bug spray companies capitalizing on Zika fears | Fox News

But hey, let's deregulate this as well so everybody is on his/her own sorting these quack products out..

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The drinking water of some six million people across the country may have elevated levels of unregulated toxic chemicals widely used in the past in many household products — notably pans coated with Teflon — a Harvard-led study published Tuesday found.

Resistant to heat, water, and oil, perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of chemicals that have been used for decades to coat fabric or food packaging, and to manufacture fire-fighting foams and Teflon pans. Now mostly phased out in the U.S., PFAS went unregulated and were often disposed in watersheds. These chemicals are persistent in the environment and have been linked to adverse health effects in animals, according to the EPA. In humans, PFAS have been linked to a wide range of illnesses, including birth defects,cancer, and immune system dysfunction, according to multiple studies.

Millions Of Americans May Be Drinking Toxic Water, Harvard Study Finds — ThinkProgress

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FreedomWorks riling against regulations, as usual:

The logic the FDA used for this blatantly illegal power grab is thus: some e-liquids contain nicotine derived from tobacco, therefore, they must be subject to FDA “tobacco” regulation. But the FDA was not content with just that step. Since many e-liquids contain synthetic nicotine, nicotine derived from other plants, or contain no nicotine at all, there would be a whole host of products that were outside FDA jurisdiction. For a regulator this is unconscionable. So the FDA decided that all components of vaping equipment that could be used with e-liquids containing tobacco-derived nicotine are subject to FDA tobacco regulation, and therefore any e-liquid that could be used with such vaping equipment is also subject to tobacco regulation. So Congress gives the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products, and the FDA uses that authority to regulate tobacco-free and even nicotine-free products. If that doesn’t make sense to you, perhaps that’s why you are not a regulator.

The FDA's New Overreaching Regulations on Vaping Products Harm Public Health and Destroy Innovative Small Businesses | FreedomWorks

Routinely, regulation is depicted as some form of power grab, reducing 'freedom,' hampering 'innovative' companies and burdening the economy with red tape.

In reality, what drives most regulation (at least, the regulation which isn't totally co-opted by corporate interests) is simply to safe people from all kinds of risks. For instance, these vapor products aren't quite as innocent.. Here is WebMD:

Are They Safe?
Most contain the chemical nicotine, which is addictive. When you stop using it, you can go into withdrawal and feel depressed and crabby. Nicotine isn't good for people with heart problems. And some initial research shows it may hurt your arteries.
It can also:

• Harm the developing brains of kids and could affect memory and attention.
  
• Damage unborn babies. Pregnant women shouldn't use anything with nicotine.
  

But the concerns go beyond nicotine alone.
Some brands contain chemicals including formaldehyde -- often used in building materials -- and another ingredient used in antifreeze that can cause cancer.
Flavors in e-cigs also raise red flags. Some use a buttery-tasting chemical called diacetyl, which is often added to foods like popcorn. When it's inhaled, it can be dangerous.
"Diacetyl is a well-known harmful chemical, which, among other things, causes a lung disease called 'popcorn lung,'" says Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association.

The Vape Debate: What You Need to Know

But hey, let's deregulate all of this and find out 50 years later that many people suffered health damage as a consequence.

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We should also deregulate the water supply as we don't really want to know what stuff is in, like lead..

But it has lifetime effects on these communities: Exposure to lead can produce learning disabilities, lower IQs, and impulsivity, on top of erratic and aggressive behavior. The effects are so bad that some researchers believe the drop in blood lead levels in the past few decades may at least partly explain the United States’ massive drop in crime since the 1990s. As the CDC explained in its study, “No safe blood lead level in children has been identified.”

Korryn Gaines believed she had lead poisoning. In black communities, it’s very common. - VoxUS sent plane with $400 million in cash to Iran - CNNPolitics.com

I mean, with deregulating and the war on 'mainstream' media and the universities, who will stop stuff like this:

But according to witnesses that testified before the EFSEC on behalf of Vancouver Energy — the joint venture between Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. and the entity behind the Tesoro-Savage terminal proposal — oil spills might not actually be that bad for the environment. “The Draft Environmental Impact Statement identifies many economic impacts arising from an accident associated with Project operations, but fails to recognize economic activity that would be generated by spill response,” Todd Schatzki, vice president of Analysis Group — a consulting group that released an economic report on the terminal commissioned by Tesoro Savage — wrote in pre-filed testimony. “When a spill occurs, new economic activity occurs to clean-up contaminated areas, remediate affected properties, and supply equipment for cleanup activities. Anecdotal evidence from recent spills suggests that such activity can be potentially large.”

Oil Spills Are Actually Good For Birds, Fish, And The Economy According To The Oil Industry | ThinkProgress

We will get a "reality" in which lead turns out to be healthy, oil spills good for the environment, a resurgence of 1960s type ads in which doctors(!) argue smoking is good for you, and climate change unmasked as a hoax..

Oops, we already have some of that.

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Yes, we don't need all that regulation..

The US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday that it has halted the trading of a firm called Neuromama. The company has a market cap of around $35 billion with shares valued at $56.25 a share before the halt. As Bloomberg News noted, the market cap of the company would make it more valuable on paper than Tesla and Delta Air Lines. The only issue, according to the SEC, is, well, pretty much everything about the company.

From the SEC announcement: "The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of NERO because of concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace about, among other things, the identity of the persons in control of the company's operations and management, false statements to company shareholders and/or potential investors that the company has an application pending for listing on the NASDAQ Stock Market, and potentially manipulative transactions in the company's stock."

So quick recap: The people running the firm may be impostors, the company is lying about possibly being listed on the Nasdaq, and the stock may have been manipulated. Dive into the company's businesses, and things look even weirder. Neuromama invested in everything from TV networks to "a clone of Amazon" to atomic fusion. Here's a brief rundown of what the firm claims to own:

The company lists offices in seven locations from Las Vegas to Sydney, Australia. The company has not filed any financial information with the SEC since its quarterly results in January 2014 for the quarter ending in October 2013. In that statement, Neuromama listed $1,081 in cash on hand and $18.26 million in "intangible assets" as it's only assets. It listed no revenue and a loss in the previous nine months of $500,811. Since then, the firm has received numerous alerts from the SEC and notices of its inability to file financial documents.

Neuromama, a clone of Amazon, and atomic-fusion stock are halted - Business Insider

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Here is the case for regulation from Jeff Sovereign. Keep in mind that:

• With increasing complexity of products and services, the case for regulation increases as it becomes more difficult for consumers to ascertain the claims producers make about their products and services
  
• When an economy becomes richer the case for regulation increases as preferences shift towards more public goods like safety, environment, health. 
  

That doesn't mean we're always in favor of more regulation. In many cases clear independent information could suffice as to exactly what the product contains and where the risks lie. 

What we're against though is the mindless drive to deregulate everything, always stressing the cost, never the benefits. That's simply ideological hogwash, government always the problem, never the solution stuff.

Something to keep in mind is also regulatory capture. The article hints at this already, producers capturing the regulatory process and using it for their private benefits. 

There are reasons to belief that this regulatory capture is one of the elements behind rising corporate profitability, as Robert Reich has demonstrated in his latest book. There is also little doubt that it played a crucial role in the financial crisis, where the regulatory agencies provided dodgy derivatives with triple A ratings, even shortly before many of them became worthless.


The Risks of Unfettered Capitalism

Another View
By JEFF SOVERN AUG. 15, 2016

Capitalism may be the best economic system ever devised, but one of its drawbacks is that it provides financial incentives to harm and even kill people. Just ask those people who say they have been victimized by cigarettes, predatory lenders, Volkswagen diesel emissions, Takata airbags,General Motors ignition switches, Trump University, Vioxx, asbestos or other products.

With some of those examples, providers knew of problems long before they were disclosed but kept selling their wares, sometimes even covering up problems, all for profit.

Our economic system uses three main mechanisms to rein in misbehaving companies. One is that businesses themselves may eschew dangerous choices, either because of their decision-makers’ consciences or out of self-interest, because they fear that their reputation — and therefore, sales — would be injured by damaging disclosures. But businesses also face countervailing pressure to generate profits. If competitors get away with cutting corners, more ethical companies that incur higher costs and so must charge higher prices may lose market share. As a result, companies may feel pushed to make choices that impose risks on consumers.

Another check on business misconduct is consumers themselves. Consumers can choose not to buy dangerous products, and declining cigarette sales indicate that many have.

But while consumer decision-making can be a potent restraint on matters consumers pay attention to — like price — consumers can’t protect themselves against hazards they don’t know about. Sometimes consumers can’t understand the risks of their conduct, which may help explain why so many consumers lost their homes in the subprime crisis. Other times companies conceal their misconduct, as Volkswagen did with diesel emissions. Or companies may create enough doubt that consumers can’t determine the truth, as tobacco companies did with the health dangers of smoking. Consumers who want to continue enjoying a product may choose to believe the company so they can continue doing so. Many smokers did just that.

The third protection is regulation. Lawmakers can study problems and require businesses to protect consumers against risks that ordinary people might not anticipate. For example, consumers getting credit cards need not master the meaning of universal default or double-cycle billing because Congress has forbidden credit card companies from employing those methods.

But regulation is under constant attack. The Republican Party platform proposes a “regulatory budget” that would limit the costs regulation can impose on the economy. Many of the attacks take place outside consumers’ view, in arcane congressional bills or when bank lobbyists are named to head government agencies. But though out of sight might mean out of mind, it doesn’t mean nonexistent.

One problem with regulation is that often the people who benefit from it — consumers — are not the people who feel most keenly the burdens it imposes. The businesses that must comply with regulations no longer make the money they once made from selling injurious products. Even if their products did not cause problems, they may now have to spend money complying with regulations. Consequently, many businesses and their lobbyists fight hard against regulation. They argue that regulation raises prices and restricts access to things consumers would otherwise have. Sometimes, that is so. But other times it isn’t, and even when it is, society is sometimes better off as a result.

Critics of regulation don’t just attack its costs. They also ask who is better able to protect your family: you or a government employee. Perhaps the people who lost their homes because of predatory lending would have been better off if policy makers had decided earlier that sometimes the answer is a bureaucrat.

The more we discard regulation, the more consumers must depend on companies to protect us from risks from their products that consumers cannot readily understand or don’t have time to study. And as the examples above indicate, companies sometimes succumb to the incentive to dispense with that protection.

Many voters will base their decision in this year’s election on the character of the candidates, or other issues, like immigration or foreign policy. But how we protect people though regulation is also very much on the ballot. When you hear complaints about too much regulation, don’t forget to ask what harm that regulation may prevent. Capitalism lifts standards of living — but regulated capitalism keeps us well enough to enjoy a higher standard of living.

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Here is an interview with Robert Reich, about regulatory capture and other stuff:

Q&A: Robert Reich on the ‘Vicious Cycle of Wealth and Power’ He Says Threatens Capitalism

• By ANNA LOUIE SUSSMAN
  

Robert Reich testifies before lawmakers in 2014 on income inequality. In his latest book, he partly blames “the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.”
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTYIMAGES

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, spent years warning of twin demons.

Technology and globalization haunted dreams of American middle-class prosperity. Machines displaced low-skilled (and increasingly middle-skilled) workers whose routine jobs could be automated, and globalization meant the flight of manufacturing and service jobs to factories and call centers in emerging countries. The result was ever-widening inequality.

In his latest book, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,” he’s changed his tune. While those two factors still play a role in growing inequality, he cites a new culprit: “the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.” He spoke to Real Time Economics about why capitalism is broken, his shift in thinking, and why economists must study raw power.

Here’s the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Q: What or who are we saving capitalism from?

A. Capitalism is based on trust. It’s impossible to have a system that works well and is based on billions of transactions if people don’t trust that others are going to fulfill their obligations, or they fear someone will take advantage of them or exploit them. That’s when a system moves from production to protection, and we spend more on everything from lawyers to security guards. That begins to spell the end of a capitalist system that generates widespread prosperity and growth, and that’s the real threat to our democratic capitalist system.

At the macro level, you have only to look at politics to see the anger that is fueling, for example, Donald Trump’s candidacy. That anger is fueled by a sense that polls show very starkly, that people feel the game is rigged against them.

Q. How did you come to see political power as a key force driving inequality in addition to technology and globalization? What were some turning points in your thinking?

A. When I was secretary of labor in the 1990s, I noticed this third factor. I didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to it at the time, but it certainly stuck in my craw. And that was the increasing political power of big corporations, Wall Street, and wealthy individuals.

For example, even the suggestion of an OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] rule would bring out the furies. We were looking at repetitive stress injury, for people who spent days behind computer terminals. There were some very simple things employers could do to reduce these injuries, but the mere suggestion that we were thinking about this caused an avalanche of congressional phone calls and inquiries and threats.

The power of the business community to get the kinds of regulatory and legal results they wanted has continued to escalate at a remarkable rate, and it seemed to me there was some relationship between that political power to get the rules and the laws they wanted, and widening inequality.

For years, I had looked at the individual industries, I had looked at individual studies, and I was aware of pieces of the puzzle. But actually seeing the entire reality, pulling the puzzle pieces together, connecting the dots—I was surprised at the enormity of it.

Q: What are some of the ways we see this market power in our own lives?

A: Americans pay more for Internet service than citizens of any other advanced country, and we get the slowest service. That’s directly related to the fact that almost 80% of Americans have no choice of Internet service provider. And why is that? Because the Internet service providers have a lot of political clout, both locally and nationally, and the cable companies know how to keep their monopolies.

Another example would be the pharmaceutical industry. Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than do the citizens of any other advanced country. Why? It’s not simply because U.S. companies do the most research, and in fact lately U.S. companies have been doing very little research. Rather, it’s because the rules and laws governing pharmaceuticals here allow companies to do things they’re not allowed to do in most other countries, like pay the manufacturers of generics to delay the introduction of generic equivalents beyond the point where the patents have run out.

These areas—Internet connections, pharmaceuticals, bankruptcy protections—they touch on the heart of where the middle class is stretched. Even food: Crop prices are down at least 6% from what they were 10 years ago, and yet food prices have been increasing much faster than inflation. That’s largely because of the market power of some very big food processors.

Q: To counter this political power, you encourage people to organize and unite against it. But people often vote against their own economic interests, and the electorate is fractured and angry at the moment. What could compel people to unite?

A: This isn’t new. People for decades, if not centuries, have sometimes voted against their economic interests. One reason is that demagogues have scapegoated minorities, and persuaded the majorities that their economic problems are due to those minorities. This divides people by race or ethnicity or religion and takes their minds off their common economic concerns.

I would be very pessimistic were it not for the fact that there were at least three or four periods where the U.S. has developed the kind of countervailing political power necessary to reverse this vicious cycle of wealth and power. But most of the sources of countervailing power that developed in the post-World War II era have now declined, including labor unions. So what do we do now? I think that the only hope is a fifth cycle of countervailing power, a tipping point marking the public’s outrage with the establishment and the status quo.

Q: Economists have been documenting inequality using various measures, but I haven’t seen much documentation of this issue of power. Is that because it’s hard to quantify and measure?

A: One thing that surprised me is how reluctant political scientists and economists are to get into this field. Economists look at market power and monopolies, but the other areas I’ve talked about—this vicious cycle of compounded wealth and power that changes the rules of the game—economists are really not taking it on.

The theoretical economists could easily develop theories about this that could enable the empirical economists to do more empirical work to see whether the theories were justified. What I’ve tried to do is provide a framework for both the theorists and the empiricists. If you don’t look at power, you’re missing a big part of the puzzle.

Related reading:

Why Wealth Inequality Is Way More Complicated Than Just Rich and Poor

What Market Swings Mean for Inequality

Nobel Winner Angus Deaton: ‘I Both Love Inequality and I’m Terrified of It’

What’s Driving Inequality: CEO Pay or Company Success?

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Yes, yes, we really don't need all that regulation..

Study after study has demonstrated that our beloved multivitamins don't actually effect most of the health outcomes they claim to — from staving off cognitive decline to preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer. The health benefits of probiotics have been wildly exaggerated (there’s good evidence that they can reduce the risk of diarrhea caused by antibiotics — but that’s about it). And taking antioxidant supplements like beta carotene and vitamin E might even harm you.

Supplement makers don't need to prove their products are effective or even safe before putting them on store shelves — and problems with quality and adulteration appear to be distressingly common. A Vox review of government databases, court documents, and scientific studies uncovered more than 850 products that contained illegal and/or hidden ingredients — including banned drugs, pharmaceuticals like antidepressants, and other synthetic chemicals that have never been tested on humans.

Dietary supplements are mostly a waste of money. But if you must buy them, try this. - Vox

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No, we really do not need regulation.. Abolish the SEC!!

Here's your bizarre business news of the day. The US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday that it has halted the trading of a firm called Neuromama. The company has a market cap of around $35 billion with shares valued at $56.25 a share before the halt. As Bloomberg News noted, the market cap of the company would make it more valuable on paper than Tesla and Delta Air Lines. The only issue, according to the SEC, is, well, pretty much everything about the company.

Neuromama, a clone of Amazon, and atomic-fusion stock are halted - Business Insider