Another GOP Big Lie bites the dust: U.S. among the top 5 business friendly countries!!

[Bill USA]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/world-bank-us-regulations_n_1028254.html


As U.S. politicians wrangle over the best way to create jobs and spur economic growth, one international agency is indicating that changing the regulatory environment may not be the answer.

The U.S. ranks in the top five of countries with the most business-friendly regulations, a recent report from the World Bank finds. America's regulations are more business-friendly than those of European, African, Latin-American and most Asian countries, according to the report.

Still, even though the U.S. may be more business-friendly than other regions when it comes to regulations that may not be enough for some; three-quarters of Americans say that businesses are over-regulated and that the rules push jobs overseas, according to a survey published last month by the Tarrance Group.

Republican leaders have been critical of what they view as excessive regulation that is preventing businesses from hiring. But Treasury Department officials wrote in a blog post Monday that the data doesn’t support the notion that over-regulation is what's holding businesses back, Politico reports.
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[HopeHoops]

1. I'm sure FOX will have 24x7 live coverage from Aruba with Geraldo on this story.

:rofl:

Sorry, but they won't mention it unless Ailes or Rove give them a way to cast it in a negative context. Damn fucking hippie-headed liberal protester bastards and all, you know the line. FOX just tried to tie the WH shooter to OWS when EVERY other report (including the FBI, SS, and local police) made it clear that he was just obsessed with Obama and had nothing to do with the protests. I'm glad they had anti-ballistic glass because one of the bullets hit and shattered one of the windows. We're living in Orwell's 1984 and the world of V at the same time. It's a little weird at best.

[libinnyandia]

2. Just one of many lies the GOP has told that Americans have

come to believe. The Republicans saying the same about my state and the media just distribute the lies.

[Igel]

3. Oddly, you can't tell if the "lie" bit the dust.

"Doing Business takes the perspective of domestic, primarily smaller companies and measures
the regulations applying to them through their life cycle. This year’s report ranks economies on
the basis of 10 areas of regulation—for starting a business, dealing with construction permits,
getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency (formerly closing a business).
In addition, data are presented for regulations on employing workers.

"Doing Business is limited in scope. It does not attempt to measure all costs and benefi ts of
a particular law or regulation to society as a whole. Nor does it measure all aspects of the
business environment that matter to fi rms and investors or aff ect the competitiveness of an
economy. Its aim is simply to supply business leaders and policy makers with a fact base for
informing policy making and to provide open data for research on how business regulations
and institutions aff ect such economic outcomes as productivity, investment, informality, corruption, unemployment and poverty."

Part of what's business friendly "regulations" are many things that a lot of people have trouble with: The banking and credit system, the ease of purchasing property (in many states, zoning isn't a big deal). Another part of "regulation" is the idea of just calling an electricity company and buying energy. It's one of the things that makes the oligarchy that is Russia, the state-sponsored enterprises in some European countries, the corruption in many S.A. and African countries potent enough to hobble things, or to provide clear preferences.

Which undermines the entire argument: If the government wants to make life easier for you, suddenly lots of regulations contemplated by the WB vanish. Averages are nice, but often are the creation of statistical methods.

But all this only matters if a business is relocating internationally *without* governmental paternalism. BP found this out in Russia--and in Iraq. It's sort of an argument based entirely on comparisons, so the least bad must be defined as "good" when, in fact, the least bad might simply be the least bad. It provides the image of an argument without an actual argument. Beating your kid 3 times a day, 7 days a week is bad--but let's not say that only beating your kid once a day, 3 days a week (the "least bad" of a possible set of beating schedules) is actually "good."

Disposing of this kind of reasoning leaves the GOP's argument to be argued on the same basis it would probably need to be argued on--one that is based on considering start-ups without reference to points outside your borders but to varying places within your borders or against a default-hypothetical "what things would be like." This is the GOP position, for the most part. The WB doesn't address it. Says it's not going to, in fact.

[Bill USA]

4. The Big Lie has 'bitten the dust' if legitimate, logically sound research using empirical evidence

carries any weight. However, for those who don't care what logically sound and empirically based conclusions show, I suppose the Big Lie lives on in their a priori minds.

Regarding the comparative approach used by the World Bank, this approach seems appropriate as the cited claim is that the U.S. is less business friendly than other countries around the orb that we live on. This comparative analysis would seem to be a rather direct approach to testing the validity of such an assertion.

As mentioned in article referred to in OP, Jan Everly, PhD., addressed the 'regulations as jobs killers' Big Lie on the Dept. of Treasury blog. In this comment the comparative approach is not used but rather a direct analysis of regulations' impact on hiring and investment as shown by various business indicators is used. In addition, the straight-forward approach of polling businessmen for their opinions on what is impacting hiring and job creation is employed.

http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Is-Regulatory-Uncertainty-a-Major-Impediment-to-Job-Growth.aspx

All emphases are my own.__Bill USA.

Last week at a Senate hearing Secretary Geithner said, “I'm very sympathetic to the argument you want to be careful to get the rules better and smarter, but I don’t think there's good evidence in support of the proposition that it's regulatory burden or uncertainty that's causing the economy to grow more slowly than any of us would like.”

Economists from across the political spectrum have also weighed into this debate and reached the same conclusion. Bruce Bartlett, a senior advisor in both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said that “no hard evidence” has been offered for claims that regulation is the “principal factor holding back employment.” And in a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, 65 percent of respondents concluded that a lack of demand, not government policy, was the main impediment to increased hiring.

Nonetheless, two commonly repeated misconceptions are that uncertainty created by proposed regulations is holding back business investment and hiring and that the overall burden of existing regulations is so high that firms have reduced their hiring.

If regulatory uncertainty was a major impediment to hiring right now, we would expect to see indications of this in one or more of the following: business profits; trends in the workforce, capacity utilization, and business investment; differences between industries undergoing significant regulatory changes and those that are not; differences between the United States and other countries that are not undergoing the same changes; or surveys of business owners and economists. As discussed in a detailed review of the evidence below, none of these data support the claim that regulatory uncertainty is holding back hiring.

Business Profits

If regulation was a significant drag on business today, we would expect to see profits constrained after recent regulatory reforms were passed into law. However, corporate profits as a share of gross domestic income have about recovered their pre-recession peak, and earnings per share in industries most affected by recent regulatory changes, such as energy and health care, have among the highest earnings per share of those in the S&P 500. This growth is inconsistent with a corporate sector held back by regulation.

The article then considers the other indicators of business activity, mentioned above, and shows that they do not show an indication that regulations, per se, or anticipated changes in regulations, depress hiring or job creation - or if they do affect job creation or hiring they are less important than DEMAND for the products and services businesses seek to sell._Bill USA

What Business Owners and Economists are Saying

In recent surveys, business owners and economists do not list regulation as the main problem facing their business, nor do they blame regulation for job cuts:

•In the September survey of small business owners by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, more than twice as many respondents cited poor sales (29.6 percent) as their largest problem than cite regulation (13.9 percent).

•In an August survey of economists by the National Association for Business Economics, 80 percent of respondents described the current regulatory environment as “good” for American businesses and the overall economy.

• As noted above, in a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, 65 percent of respondents concluded that a lack demand, not government policy, was the main impediment to increased hiring.

•According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than three-tenths of 1 percent of mass lay-offs in the second quarter of this year were due to government regulations or intervention. <2>

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[Enthusiast]

5. Apparently three-quarters of Americans are misinformed.

Why am I not surprised?

[Duct Tape]

6. +1 It's truly sad to see so many good people fall

for the b.s. that is spewed over the airwaves.

[Bill USA]

7. this is why I wish more people would post occasionally on the corporate media sites: NBCnews,

ABC, CBS, USAToday, etc. so people can see some informative posts. NOTe that most of these media web-sites now DO allow you to put urls in your comments (on many sites they become active links). So, if you are like the typical DUer, you can give your readers a link to the study or informative article you are getting your information from.

I know it seems like a Herculean task (specifically, cleaning the Augean stables of all the shit) to try to counteract the avalanche of disinformation the Corporate media is so successfully feeding the suckers, but I feel posting your information has more effect than if you didn't post at all.

If enough of us start doing this, I think it will start to have an effect.