Reality regulation: Small biz needs MORE regulation of big biz

Small businesses do NOT, NOT, NOT need President Barack Obama promising to roll back regulations of big businesses. Rather, as this McClatchy story shows, small businesses need more regulation of big business, and in most cases, knows it! (In some of the cases below, it's the failure of state, not federal regulations, but, then, in some of the cases, federal regulation is needed, period.)

First, government regulations make for GOOD business:

"Government regulations are not 'choking' our business, the hospitality business," Bernard Wolfson, the president of Hospitality Operations in Miami, told The Miami Herald. "In order to do business in today's environment, government regulations are necessary and we must deal with them. The health and safety of our guests depend on regulations. It is the government regulations that help keep things in order."

That's why big biz, like Big Ag that supplies "hospitality" folks their food, hate regulation. If you can trace bad meat, the government can fine companies and citizens can sue. Less regulation makes that harder; big biz gets to operate in the shadows.

Small businesses in general know what Wolfson said:

None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it.

And know what I just said about big business:

Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.

 Small biz knows the post-crash lending freeze-up is what screwed it.

Small businessman Rip Daniels mentions another problem:

"Absolutely, positively not. What is choking my business is insurance. What's choking all business is insurance. You cannot go into business, any business — small business or large business — unless you can afford insurance," he told Biloxi's Sun Herald.

 And state insurance regulation departments are a piece of crap. We actually need a federal agency that does nothing but regulate insurers. Daniels also, contrary to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which claims to represent small businesses but doesn't, says Obama's stimulus plan helped small businesses like his.

That would be this lying U.S. Chamber:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is among the most vocal critics of the Obama administration, blaming excessive regulation and the administration's overhaul of health care laws for creating an environment of uncertainty that's hampering job creation. 

When it's asked what specific regulations harm small businesses _which account for about 65 percent of U.S. jobs — the Chamber of Commerce points to health care, banking and national labor. Yet all these issues weigh much more heavily on big corporations than on small business.

Beyond that, most of Obamacare isn't yet in effect, banking needs even more regulation, and organized labor hasn't gotten consistent presidential support from either party since Truman's time.


Meanwhile, playing off the rack, music store owner Lynn Swager sees something entirely different hurting small businesses:

"The thing that chokes us, believe or not, is the Internet. There are so many things that are accessible on the Internet that they can purchase for less than I can purchase from my distributor," Swager told McClatchy. 

"Everybody thinks the Internet is this great thing that is happening to the world, but it is really, I think, killing a lot of small business. People that we talk to that are no longer in business say the same thing exactly."

 But, as Amazon's attempt to dodge state sales taxes shows, this, too is a regulatory issue.

Hey, Obama - what about the Chamber's US donors?

The U.S. Chamber has plenty of problems with U.S. donors without Preznit Kumbaya invoking the specter of Chinese money buying influence. Dow Chemical buying lobbying to try to prevent tighter rules on chemical facilities, for example.

So why doesn't Team Obama discuss THAT? Probably because, as the one wing of the bipartisan duopoly, it gets its "fair share" of campaign cash from many of these companies. Remember, Obama opted out of public financing of his presidential campaign, with a bigger share of his cash than John McCain's coming from Wall Street.

In light of that, here's another big Chamber donor. Prudential Financial gave $2 million to the Chamber last year to fund its lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. Considering the watered-down final result, it was probably worth it for Pru. And, with Obama's rhetoric gone by the boards, it will probably be worth it for him in 2012, too. Other major bankster donors include (shock) Goldman Sachs and AIG. Both of them, directly or indirectly "made whole" by Little Timmy Geithner in the TARP bailout, and sheltered, in Goldman's case, in the financial reform bill, will also probably be $uitably grateful to Obama in 2012.

And Congressional Democrats did nothing to push significant campaign finance reform of legislative elections.

With AMA healthcare OK, who will endorse funding?

Right now, different groups of Democrats, divided along House-Senate, conservative-liberal, and other lines, remain at odds on how to fund any new healthcare legislation. Since the American Medical Association has now indicated it backs the idea, as expressed in the House bill, maybe it’s time for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to, at the minimum, indicate what funding mechanisms it finds least objectionable.

‘Buy American’ for climate control? What a laugh

So the U.S., the biggest climate-control foot-dragger among developed nations, and worse in some ways than China or other “Tier 1” developing nations, has Members of Congress suggesting a “buy American” provision in the Waxman-Markey climate change bill now working its way through the House.

I can understand the U.S. Chamber of Commerce being against it, as the C of C always looks to cheap labor in underdeveloped countries as the “solution” for everything. (And, no, what is “good” for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or even your small town’s chamber of commerce, is often most assuredly NOT good for America.)

And, yes, it could violate WTO rules. Ottawa is already steamed.

Sure, we might stiff Canada. But, what if Beijing gets hacked off?

Beyond that, there’s my original point. We’re the biggest foot-dragger on climate control, in part because neither half of the duopoly wants to piss off the American business from whom we’re supposed to buy?

I’m at the point where I hope House Ag attaches such onerous provisions to Waxman-Markey, or the Senate simply digs in its heels, and either way, the bill gets killed.