I’ve written before about the heavy costs of regulation, including these rather sobering statistics. Or, to be more accurate, here are some staggering numbers. Americans spend 8.8 billion hours every year filling out government forms. The economy-wide cost of regulation is now $1.75 trillion. For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency, 100 jobs are destroyed […]
read more...There have been lots of studies showing that there’s no benefit to job training programs. People who sign up with these government schemes are not more likely to either get jobs or to earn more money. Heck, even the New York Times was forced to acknowledge that these programs are a costly failure. To really […]
read more...President Obama recently got himself in a bit of hot water with his “you didn’t build that” remark, which trivialized the hard work of entrepreneurs. But he is right – in a perverse way – about government playing a big role in the life of small businesses. Thanks to a maze of regulations, the government […]
read more...Yesterday, I did a serious post outlining the absurd policies being pursued in France, Italy, and Greece, along with some much-deserved scorn for the throw-fuel-on-the-fire statist analysis of the International Monetary Fund. Later in the day, I posted a cartoon about Greece and also included links to other amusing posts about the mess across the […]
read more...While most of my disdain is focused on the clowns in Washington, I enjoy poking fun at the policies adopted by the various nitwits and thugs that can be found in other governments. That’s why I’ve mocked the British government-run healthcare system for letting a woman die when officials failed to notice a six-inch toilet […]
read more...Regulation is a hidden tax that in many cases raises the cost of creating jobs and generating wealth. Here are some staggering numbers. Americans spend 8.8 billion hours every year filling out government forms. The economy-wide cost of regulation is now $1.75 trillion. For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency, 100 jobs are destroyed in […]
read more...I’ve written about the government’s war on consumer-friendly light bulbs (and also similar attacks on working toilets and washing machines that actually clean), so I’m generally not surprised by bureaucratic nonsense. But even I’m shocked the federal government gave an affordability award for a light bulb that costs $50. I’m not making this up. Here’s […]
read more...While I’m obviously not a fan of big government, I have mixed feelings about why the public sector is so blindly wasteful. Is it because politicians and bureaucrats are well-intentioned morons who accidentally do damage (as illustrated by this cartoon), or is it that they are venal vultures looking to grab as much loot as […]
read more...I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I write about insanely stupid government policies. But I know I get more motivated to fight big government. How can anyone want to give more money and power to politicians, for instance, after reading these comparisons of dumb government policy in the United States and United […]
read more...When I read the story from England about needing photo ID to buy teaspoons, I thought British bureaucrats built an insurmountable lead in the U.S. vs. U.K. contest for stupidest government action. But I should have had more faith in the hare-brained politicians of Illinois. When they’re not busy driving businesses from the state with […]
read more...