Sunday, November 16, 2008
CHAINED DOWN FOR SAFETY
At the recent RPSoG lecture which was on the value to cities of getting the Olympics {relatively little in the way of numbers so difficult to say how the costs & benefits balance out which may be deliberate} we were told in passing that:
"We couldn't build the Birds Nest Stadium here because the Health & Safety Executive wouldn't let us."
A few days later Graham Garden of The Goodies {a comedy series full of zany antics, the heroes riding around on a trandem & the memorably terrifying appearance of Kitten Kong} said on the radio that they couldn't produce it nowadays because 'The Health & Safety Executive wouldn't let us."
Which in turn reminded me that when I visited the pump storage plant at Cruachan some years ago (on the road to Oban - tours provided to the public & well worth it) we were told that they couldn't have built it again at a reasonable price because of the Health & Safety Executive.
Having previously objected that building projects in Britain, such as the Forth Bridge, are now 14 times more expensive than they used to be in real terms I think a lot of the blame can be laid on the H&S people. As a general rule of thumb regulatory costs cost 20 times more to those being regulated (2nd last item). Does anybody doubt that if we got rid of all 200,000 H&S workers, possibly increasing required insurance payments a little to provide an incentive for what is actually necessary, that we would not be in recession?
In reality the greatest correlation with health, life expectancy & accident survival in any society is not with the number of regulators it has but with its level of wealth.
"We couldn't build the Birds Nest Stadium here because the Health & Safety Executive wouldn't let us."
A few days later Graham Garden of The Goodies {a comedy series full of zany antics, the heroes riding around on a trandem & the memorably terrifying appearance of Kitten Kong} said on the radio that they couldn't produce it nowadays because 'The Health & Safety Executive wouldn't let us."
Which in turn reminded me that when I visited the pump storage plant at Cruachan some years ago (on the road to Oban - tours provided to the public & well worth it) we were told that they couldn't have built it again at a reasonable price because of the Health & Safety Executive.
Having previously objected that building projects in Britain, such as the Forth Bridge, are now 14 times more expensive than they used to be in real terms I think a lot of the blame can be laid on the H&S people. As a general rule of thumb regulatory costs cost 20 times more to those being regulated (2nd last item). Does anybody doubt that if we got rid of all 200,000 H&S workers, possibly increasing required insurance payments a little to provide an incentive for what is actually necessary, that we would not be in recession?
In reality the greatest correlation with health, life expectancy & accident survival in any society is not with the number of regulators it has but with its level of wealth.
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the greatest correlation with health, life expectancy & accident survival in any society is not with the number of regulators it has but with its level of wealth.
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
Does anybody doubt that if we got rid of all 200,000 H&S workers, possibly increasing required insurance payments a little to provide an incentive for what is actually necessary, that we would not be in recession?
I don't know if the accusation is true, but FDR was accused of dragging out the Great Depression by overregulating the economy. During every minor hiccup in the economy the Democratic Party begins wailing that we have an economic crisis looming that is 'larger than the Great Depresion'. The best thing I can say about the Dems is that they seem like the boy who cried wolf, since they seem to benefit from public misery. The states in the northern half of the country that are Dem dominated are in permanent decline, despite not having as many tax consuming minorites as many of the southern states.
The vaious levels of government take about 40% of my pay to support welfare deadbeats, bureaucrats, unemployed immigrants and so many other things. If you want I will provide proof of this.
The government regulates how many hydrocarbons my 29 year old emits, but can't even fence our southern border.
It is beyond useless.
I don't know if the accusation is true, but FDR was accused of dragging out the Great Depression by overregulating the economy. During every minor hiccup in the economy the Democratic Party begins wailing that we have an economic crisis looming that is 'larger than the Great Depresion'. The best thing I can say about the Dems is that they seem like the boy who cried wolf, since they seem to benefit from public misery. The states in the northern half of the country that are Dem dominated are in permanent decline, despite not having as many tax consuming minorites as many of the southern states.
The vaious levels of government take about 40% of my pay to support welfare deadbeats, bureaucrats, unemployed immigrants and so many other things. If you want I will provide proof of this.
The government regulates how many hydrocarbons my 29 year old emits, but can't even fence our southern border.
It is beyond useless.
# posted by 
: January 07, 2009
: January 07, 2009
I don't think he deliberately dragged out the Depression but economists are pretty well agreed that this, & the Smoot-Hawly tariffs, had that effect leading to a halving of US GNP between 1929 & 1939.
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