I see. In that case, I would agree. The issue I have, though, is that the regulations constantly shift and change allowing more and more clout by certain agencies like the EPA. For example, their most recent Clean Air and Water Act in January of this year allows them to have more powers over cars and other polluters. Because of this, it will likely hurt auto manufacturing as they must re-tool for whatever compliances the EPA sets up... Which hurts jobs and potential innovations in the future.

Not true. There is vastly more government regulation and intrusion today than whe Reagan was in office. Look at the size and scope of government entities in the 1980's vs. today. There are vastly more laws on the books today than then. This causes increased costs in compliance and diminishes worker and business productivity - rather than create new, helpful products, they have to constantly re-tool.

I will give you this analogy:

Take the most unreguated industry in the world - PCs, and compare them with a heavily-regulated, capital-intensive industry such as energy production or cars.

For PCs, they've gone from being rather specific, large, costly, inefficient devices to the most widely-used and needed range of devices in 40 years. Innovation is something that takes place every day, and not decades. Products constantly iterate and improve, providing more and better efficiencies all the time.

Comparatively, you look at power and cars in America, and very little progress has been made. Additionally, each time innovations may be reached, new laws are added to the books to restrict and regulate such things (such as fracking or forcing safety standards/emissions on all vehicles). The result is very slow-moving technologies that hurt the consumer. Comparatively, you can look at generally unregulated sub-markets such as solar energy, and you see the huge leaps they've made in the same time period, because the government doesn't want to restrict them because they aren't dirty (even though they are in many ways).

For example, solar energy costs per KWH have dropped 40% this decade, and will likely to continue to do so. Why? Very little regulations on their manufacturing or usage. Compare that to coal.... Big difference. That is why regulations aren't as favorable or as desirable as you'd think. They make sense from the initial point of view, but in reality, they can be much more costly than you believe.

I am tempted to come up with a cake with the word Job on it, as a response to the "get a job" loser comment that is thrown out.  In this era, the cake should now be known to be a lie.

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."  

- Robert X. Cringely

It's a funny quote... but not really an accurate one.

Afterall, a PC doesn't kill anyone when it dies.

Sure your data is wiped, which a PC is for...

but a car is for transporting people.

So the computer wouldn't blow up the people.  Just no longer be able to transport them.

Also, if you take care of your PC... it will actually last a LOT longer then a year.  You just need a good PC mechanic, or PC mechanic tools.

Car = contains passengers and transports them.  A car crashes, it ends up eliminating what it carries, which is passengers.

PC = contains data and does stuff with it.  A computer crashes, it ends up eliminating that which it carries, which is data.

I'm sorry, what PCs only last a year? I have never seen or heard of anybody have their PC stop working after a year (unless they dropped it/power surge/water damage). Hell, Microsoft has enough trouble getting people to upgrade their PCs every 3-4 years, most businesses who bought their PCs mid way through the XP cycle, have only recently upgraded to 7. My nan had a PC, up until a year ago, that ran something like Windows 98. In short, PCs are usually very durable.

What's more, if this fallacy of computers exploding all over the place did exist, it would only be because consumers deemed that losing their data once a year as low-importance in comparison to the price savings they get. People will be less willing to substitute risking their life in a car crash once a year, versus the price savings they would get.

I found this video too frustrating, particularly with that pro-union, harping on about slavery guy, he just seemed to make some random bullshit statement, and then wail loudly for the next few seconds, laugh in the guys face, and then start over.

His attempt to educate members of congress is more bearable but it isn't free of idiots.

A few thoughts ...

Government involvement in the economy is bound to happen and is not (necessarily) a bad thing, but the role of the government should be more like that of a referee than a participant. Essentially, their focus should be on fairness (think in the context of sports, ie. equality of opportunity) and preventing dangerous activity that creates excessive risk of injury (fraud, corruption, etc.)

Restrictions  should be put on campaign finance ... Individuals, corporations, unions and charities should all be able to make political donations, but there should be a uniform cap on their total donations in a year; and donations to a party or a third party cause should count against the same cap. The cap should be high enough that people can freely support the candidates and causes they want, but low enough that organizations can't buy influence by funding every candidate in every election.

The tax code should be simplified and handled in a non-political fashion. In my opinion it would ideally be a flat tax, but even in a progressive taxation system the rules should be set up in a way that is free of political grandstanding; for an example of progressive system free of political grandstanding, you create the divisions based on something measured (normal curve of income distribution) have the tax bracket variations based on an increase over the base rate (+0%, +5%, +10%, etc) and the only thing that can be adjusted is the base rate to meet revenue needs.

And such measures are fine. My issue is that generally when one discusses greed and corruption, the answer is a lot different. Its never about simplicity and transparency, but complexity and secrecy. Our tax code is over 20,000 pages and our evironmental regulations in just the Clean Air Act are over 7,000 codes and climbing. We're doing nothing to reduce the size or burden of government, but to continually increase, augment and boost what they do, which is having devastating effects on our economy. Favored corporations get money and power. Favored politicians grow in clout and lawmaking ability, while the general populace and entrepreneur foot the bill and get screwed.