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EPA's would be dictator

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aequalsa

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This is the attitude and circumstance that pervades government agencies. They have a flamboyant glee in the exercise of their power. Utterly disgusting.

top EPA official saying the EPA’s “philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies - just as the Romans crucified random citizens in areas they conquered to ensure obedience.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/epa-officials-philosophy-oil-companies-crucify-them-just-romans-crucified

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Pretty sad. Of all the structural impediments to business in the U.S., environmental ones may be the most serious because voters have bought into them. Given that the U.S. desperately needs real growth, restrictions matter more than before (it is analogous to minimum wages starting to matter when the economy is down).

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It is. I was mostly horrified by this creeps explicitly evil psychological outlook.

About the min wage laws, I was thinking the other day how they are almost completely responsible for unemployment. There are tons of things that people might hire for at $4/hour or $2/hour and ridiculous amounts of jobs at .35/ hour. (I could use some help with keeping my garage tidy.) The lowest price that an employer can find someone to work for eliminates the last involuntarily unemployed person. That true market based minimum wage is kept low by hamstringing businesses with regulations and tax burdens, environmental and otherwise, but the true cause of unemployment is the minimum wage.

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There are tons of things that people might hire for at $4/hour or $2/hour and ridiculous amounts of jobs at .35/ hour.
That's true. Minimum wage laws become a constraint during bad-times. Unemployment compensation is another factor that makes stops people from seeking really low-paying jobs. Many economists note that wages are "sticky". Even without these government structures, people are loathe to accept a wage that is significantly lower than they just had, thinking that there must be a way that someone else will pay them nearer to what they were just earning, and thinking that some level is "unfair", and also thinking that if they accept a wage too low, they may be stuck at a lower level. I think there's some truth to that, but without minimum wage laws and unemployment compensation, people would throw in the towel sooner. In addition, it would be really helpful if economic facts were more widely accepted and it became common wisdom that in a recession, wages ought to fall.
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