Category Archives: regulation

More Overregulation

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More fallout from Dodd-Frank: these regulators now are about to promulgate a rule set that requires companies to sequester bonuses paid to their executives for some period of years before those execs can collect their bonuses.

Aside from interfering with decisions that are wholly internal to a business and so none of the government’s business, there are other problems with this set.  This rule set will

govern pay to risk-taking executives who are in a position to do material damage to their companies.

In addition to extending the deferral window, regulators want to broaden the pool of bank employees subject to the new rules by expanding the definition of risk taker to include factors like the amount of money an employee handles.

Never mind that risk is part of business, and there already are Federal, and State, laws extant that deal with both fraud negligence in this area.  Never mind that shareholder suits, or the threat of them, also already exist as a market mechanism for adequately managing risk-taking.

There’s also this:

…how to balance risk with reward in compensation arrangements that will apply to a cross section of banks, investment advisers, broker dealers, credit unions and executives at mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  …

“Trying to come up with a rule that can be uniformly applied to a set of highly diverse players in the financial-services industry was always just going to be very difficult,” said Kyoko Lin, a partner at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

Well, NSS.  This is yet another reason government has no business meddling in the market place.

Centrally Planned Micromanagement

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Now the People’s Republic of China government is concerning itself with the names the Chinese citizenry give to their streets, businesses, and the very places where they live.  The government has

announced a new move to “stem irregularities in naming the country’s roads, bridges, buildings, and residential compounds,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

Li Liguo, China’s Minister of Civil Affairs, said that the move will target “exaggerated, foreign, bizarre and repetitive” names, as well as those that cause inconvenience to citizens….

After all, the citizens—the ones applying these names—can’t be allowed to inconvenience themselves.

Worse, such names

damage sovereignty and national dignity, are against socialist core values, deviate from public order and good morals, and raise strong concerns from the public[.]

Or at least the Government’s criteria for these things.

Because the government hasn’t intruded far enough.  Or else a surprising number of PRC bureaucrats are overpaid and underemployed.

Regarding Flint

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EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman, who resigned in February, explained to Congress on Tuesday that “during the summer and fall of 2015 the Region 5 Flint team actively evaluated and reevaluated the enforcement options available.”  But she chose not to intervene in September because she worried that the Michigan Attorney General might sue the agency.  When have legal risks ever stopped the EPA?

The Wall Street Journal has a valid question.  But both the editorial staff and the EPA ignore another matter: the publicity of a Michigan AG lawsuit against the EPA would have resulted in a high level of public oversight of the EPA, of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and of Flint’s tap water.

Now the Bill Must Pass?

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The Georgia legislature has passed a bill and put it in front of the governor that would

protect pastors from performing same-sex marriages and give “faith-based” organizations permission to deny use of their business for anything they find “objectionable.” Businesses wouldn’t have to hire anyone whose religious beliefs are different from theirs[.]

The NFL doesn’t like that.

“NFL policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness, and prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other improper standard,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said. “Whether the laws and regulations of a state and local community are consistent with these policies would be one of many factors NFL owners may use to evaluate potential Super Bowl host sites.”

So, what else does that mean?  Would the NFL then require the Atlanta Falcons to leave Georgia, too?  Sounds like this is a dare that Georgia must accept: the governor must sign the bill.

Too Far

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In New York,

Instead of handing patients slips of paper, physicians soon must electronically send orders directly to pharmacies for everything from antibiotics to cholesterol pills to painkillers, with some exceptions. Otherwise, prescribers face the possibility of fines, license loss or even jail.

Because New York’s Know Betters know better.

However.

Digital prescribing thwarts prescription-slip forgery and theft….

They also expose the patient, the doctor, and the pharmacy to hacking.  Sort of like an IRS or an OMB hack we all know and love.

There are other downsides.

Patients, for instance, could accidentally have prescriptions sent to the wrong pharmacy or to one that has closed or out of stock by the time they arrive. Instead of taking a piece of paper to another pharmacy, patients have to get the doctor to re-issue the prescription or the pharmacy to transfer it.

It’s also harder for patients to shop around for medication deals when a script is in a pharmacy’s system instead of in hand, says Dr. Joseph R. Maldonado, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York.

And there’s the business of government meddling in a private enterprise’s internal affairs and here interfering with a doctor-patient admin function.

No matter how well intentioned, government cannot be allowed into a private business’ concerns.  New York still is being a nanny state.