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Originally Posted by stonez138
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Because big business will go out of it's way to screw you over if they think it will raise their profits and because it's the government job to protect it's citizens, not only from other nation states but from billion dollar companies that want to bleed us dry.
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This view of the world would be so laughable if it wasn't driving many of our policy decisions today. In general, businesses don't operate for long on the goal of screwing over their customers. Only through serving the customers' needs does a business thrive. Now, we do see less serving of customers in the insurance industry, and one must ask why this sector is special. Is there something about health insurance which attracts only horrible businessmen? Or could it be due to government barriers which make it difficult to start a new company in that sector? When you need a multi million dollar compliance department to handle the mountains of legislation produced regarding the industry, you restrict this market to only the very large companies. If we massively deregulate the industry (especially detach it from employment), we'd see much more competition and we'd weed out any companies that are dicks to their customers. It's comical how the government comes in and regulates an industry for 60 years, then claims the market has failed when that industry sucks.
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So, according to your logic, a car insurance company should be able to deny claims based on whatever reason they fancy, say refuse to pay for accidents involving red cars?
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As long as that rule was stipulated in the contract that you sign when you purchase car insurance, sure that's ok. I wouldn't buy such insurance and I doubt anyone else would either, so we'd be unlikely to see such a product. But there isn't anything inherently wrong with the buyer and seller of a product agreeing to any arbitrary conditions they want to. What you continually seem to miss is the fact that in the free market, a customer must consent to the purchase of the product. If they don't like the rules, they can forego the purchase altogether or seek out another provider.
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I love how all the right wingers clamor about the free market as if we the people were better off back in the day with monopolies and steel barons, before minimum wage, labor laws, and workers rights. Why should the government dictate who you can hire and how long they can work? I say employers should be able to hire 10 year olds and force them to work 16 hour days for 10 cents an hour!
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Do not confuse circumstance due to technology with circumstance due to regulatory regime. We didn't have child labor and long working days due to greedy owners who wanted to rape and pillage the people. We had such things because technology was at the primitive level where the production of people was so low that we required people work longer and starting at a younger age in order to produce the things they needed to survive. Child labor has been around since humans have been around. We were only able to eradicate it due to increases in productivity of the adults to the point where child labor was not necessary for survival. Government only came along afterwards and said it got rid of child labor. If you used government to ban child labor in the places where it persists today, you would drive people to starvation or (as is documented in several countries) you would drive children to work in the underground economy, often as prostitutes.
Keep in mind that arbitrary control over economic decisions by a central authority has been the norm ever since humans lived in small tribes with a leader making all decisions for the community. It's not some new idea that just came about in the 20th century. Centralized control over the economy is a much older idea than free markets. It wasn't until the 18th century when we really started to see a transition to free markets, and the following 2 centuries led to the greatest advances in living standards the world has ever seen. You may claim that I want to take us back to 19th century where children had to work in factories for 10 cents a day, but you want to drive us back to the 5th century with 30 year life expectancies and hard, brutal lives.
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I think thats more applicable to what your actually trying to argue. Your point, however, ignores the fact that by not hiring women the would still risk litigation for unfair hiring practicises. You can try and word it any way you want, but what you're saying is people shouldn't hire women if they have to pay them the same wage as men.
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You assume that such a law is black and white in terms of being applied. Hell, even if a company does not break the law, a lawsuit still costs them a large sum of money in defense costs. So even if the employer does not break the law, it still costs more money to employ a woman thanks to Obama. I know this law was passed with the best of intentions, but an idiot with good intentions will do far more damage than an evil genius ever could.
08-13-2012, 11:17 PM
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