When will people stop falling for the RW rethug crap about deregulation

[captain queeg]

They’ve sold the idea of free market and deregulation saving money, which is generally true, leading to improved conditions, which is generally false. What it does is increase profits. Some things just need government oversight. Like clean water, sewage, electricity, air travel etc. you can’t expect the free market to do the right thing for people. But we’ll see the right wingers point there finger elsewhere and apparently the majority of people will fall for it again. I’m looking at you Texas.

[rampartc]

1. you can expect the unregulated free market to externalize

any corporation not racing to the bottom will soon be taken over by more rapacious competitors.

regulation is necessary to prevent pollution, exploitation, and hazardous products.

IF that makes me a "socialist" i wear it proudly.

[hlthe2b]

2. I've asked that since Reagan...

It seems some never learn from mistakes. Will Texas now? I have to wonder if this will not even make them do the "unthinkable" and enact a state income tax to pay for what will be horrendous destruction.

[OldBaldy1701E]

6. And

I have been stunned at the absolute idiocy of these people since Reagan. They just cannot get that rethug fairy dust out of their eyes, no matter how many times reality wipes it away. They cannot figure out that it is all lies to fatten their wallets at your expense. But hey, our main goal in American life is to get a rich as possible, so why is anyone shocked at anything these leeches do?

BTW, How are the strawberries, Captain?

[safeinOhio]

3. Best quote on Capitalism

“The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”

[captain queeg]

4. That's a good one. I'll be using it.

[safeinOhio]

5. I think it was Karl Marx.

Not positive.

[ancianita]

7. AND stop falling for the false definition of freedom without responsibility for fellow humans.

It's the corporate PR drumbeat that falsely trains humans to accept plantation level poverty and call it "middle class."

Socialist subsidies for corporate world, "free market" costs for the rest of us.

Of course fictional personhoods see humans as expendable.
Of course they buy sellouts to run their political playbook.

[BigBearJohn]

8. We really need to expose the idiocy behind deregulation and their REAL motive for promoting it!

[gab13by13]

9. It's Ron Paul's libertarianism,

This is nothing new for Texas. Texas cut taxes to the bare bone to induce companies to come there. 1 in 4 people in Texas doesn't have health insurance. When black top roads need repaved Texas will grind up the black top and turn them into gravel roads. Texas didn't want its energy to be regulated by the Fed so it created its own grid strictly within its own state. Privatization at its finest; gas companies are fighting to get customers by providing cheap gas and the way they do that is by operating on the cheap, like not winterizing its gas lines or gas wells and pumps. Texas could have fixed this problem because the same thing happened 10 years ago. Wind turbines and even nuclear plants aren't winterized.

Abbott blaming windmills is sad. Windmills operate in Iowa, in Denmark, in Greenland, winterized windmills.

The moral of the story of Texas is; when you cut taxes to the bare bone you are forced to run your state on the cheap.

Here in Pa. when a main water line breaks in the freezing cold, our local municipal workers go out in the cold and get the line fixed. Then again our small town isn't libertarian, we did things like use the Army Corps of engineers to provide flood control for our small town and after the work was done we maintain the dike. You only get nice things when you pay for them or if you want them.

[Mr. Evil]

10. It's hard to get people to learn when most media is corporate owned and controlled.

Someone, though, needs to beat the drum regularly about how regulations are good for society and progress. In other words, regulation encourages innovation. Example: just over 40 years ago we were driving behemoth, inefficient and vastly unreliable automobiles. Most equipped with V8 engines that got about 7-10 miles per gallon and produced around 150 horsepower and even with regular maintenance would last about 3 years before falling apart. With regulations advocating higher miles per gallon efficiency, higher safety standards and reliability we now have cars that have V8 engines that can get over 30 miles per gallon and put out less pollution than a common lawn mower. Safety is at an all-time high. Even V6 equipped cars have vastly more power and efficiency that older V8's. Cars today are much better engineered and with regular maintenance can easily remain reliable for 10 years or more (my car is a 2009 V6 Cadillac CTS w/ 140k miles that runs like new).

If not for regulation we'd still be driving gas guzzling clunkers that, on a scale of 1-10, might rate a 2. There are so many other examples but, that is an easy one to understand and notice since most everyone owns and drives a car. Older people like me have lived to see and experience the differences.

I will add this; governments first and foremost task (at least in my mind) is to make sure our quality of life and standard of living is better today than it was yesterday. Regulations, among other things, help make that happen.
As I said, regulation encourages innovation.