No doubt about it, the governmental partnership with those who own politicians leads to some troubling results in the marketplace.
However, the usual reaction of "we need more regulation!!" is a big trap. That results in policies which further favor very specialized, powerful interests, at the expense of private citizens. It often results in more of what we used to associate with third world underdeveloped countries; long lines, maddening red tape and paperwork, and the feeling that one must walk on eggshells and be careful not to annoy bureaucrats if one is to get what is his logical right to begin with.
CA DMV is an outfit which is inefficient, incompetent, and largely lacking in communication skills, or methods.
Recently, I registered a car, and obtained a driver's license. Unlike many states, you don't get a temporary plate, or the real thing on the spot. If you buy from a dealer you have to ride around with the dealer's advertising plate with temp registration taped in the corner of the windshield until the real plate arrives in the mail. That takes a couple of month's. So, like it or not you ride with Joe's Hooplah Auto Emporium!! plates until the other arrives.
Driver's licenses work in a similar fashion. Rather than just printing it out on the spot after you spend a day in the DMV filling out forms, supply proper credentials, etc., they give you a slip of paper and you wait for the mail.
Their much touted web site has forms for changing name, address and other things, but no provision for correcting the problem of a clerk entering your birth date incorrectly. For this you have to call the 800 number five times hoping the automated system doesn't hang up before you get a person on the line. Once you get the person, you are told to go to a DMV office and wait in line with proper credentials. Of course the battery of automated messages include the days they are not open due to "the current financial crisis".
Since they have my name right on the title, I've opted to put off correcting the misspelled middle name on the registration. That could be more of a can of worms than it is worth.
These are not the people I want deciding what health concerns and drugs are approved or denied. Actually these aren't people I want to have the slightest power over my life.
If current regulations against fraud, theft, and violating true rights of others were enforced, rather than clouded by feel good legislation with bills named to pique emotions, the problems would be fewer and more adequately addressed.
What people ignore is the fact that specific, complicated regulations are designed to serve those who keep professional politicians afloat while actually providing the few a path around the nominal purpose of such legislation. I've seen specific cases first hand, and you can find this general practice without too much effort. Very often the high profile firms who cry the loudest are the most firmly in bed with the legislators and regulations they decry. It is an old trick and it has worked well for a long time.
The more people are willing to allow these additional regulatory measures, thinking they are being administered by benevolent "leaders", the more they are supporting their own rape. It is a shame but it is the way it is. I'm shocked at how many intellectuals are sucked in. Of course many of them depend on grants so they are basically in the same bed as the corporations they claim are evil. It is an orgy including politicians, companies seeking government enforced monopoly, and the smarmy sycophants who find status in separation from independent entrepreneurs, and who scrap like crazy for the sustenance provided by their orgy bedfellows.
Anyone who thinks these attempts to further screw with the healthcare world are not backed by the "evil" companies which are held up as the demons is sadly naive and mistaken. Congress is not going to hold themselves to the same system they want to foist on us. Why is it that the main people vehemently pushing this are not average Americans, or the working poor?
These people are rich, powerful and use public money for transportation, pensions, salary and more, and they basically write their own ticket. It is nuts. The motive has nothing to do with health or care.
The main players have never been on a hand to mouth budget, and in most cases they have no experience in truly private business. At best, most have been in so-called private companies that feed off of government money. They have no clue what they are talking about when they make blanket statements beginning with the phrase, "what the American people want...".
How many people want what I want? I have no idea. How can such blanket statements be made? People I know mostly want to live their lives as they choose without having to ask permission for every action they take or don't take.
Too bad there are more people who remember when lines were a rare thing in this country. There were few reasons to have to stand in a government line to obtain some "privilege". Even DMV was not an all day, by appointment, or else, affair.
Sad use of technology when you find yourself on hod for 30 minutes or more. and then you talk to someone who doesn't handle English well and can't solve the problem. Technology is supposed to make life easier, not more tedious. It is a poor application of the art if it generates inconvenience. Much of the reason is the fact that many agencies and companies apply a technology or system before considering the consequences, side effects and bugs.
You track most of that to the increasing possibility that companies can use government to further their ends. If the government did not have the power it has, they could not be so used. Those who cry for more regulation and power are only opening the door to more of this misuse and abuse of the dwindling numbers of private individuals who do not choose to partner with tax supported tyrants and con men.
Every dealing I have with government agencies of any kind tends to make me crazy. My path doesn't tend to cross with those who may be helping people. I don't qualify for that need.
I cannot even imagine the result if the feds gain more control over energy resources and methods and health care options. Hopefully I am just nuts and stupid, and those who think those who don't go for this stuff are all ignorant and inbred are right. So far I do not tend to see the value in this kind of authoritarian parent with guns.
