Regulation and the Slide to Hell

There’s too much regulation, says Romney. Too much regulation, say some businesses. It’s always categorical, not about which regulation. Just that regulation is bad. Stop it.

The forests are burning. The drought continues. The deserts are growing. The earth is warming. The diseases are spreading. The storms are destroying our towns and farms. The glaciers are melting and the oceans are retaking our shores, submerging islands, making refugees and warriors. But oh block the regulation.

Capitalism, Religion and Global Warming

Global warming is the earth’s response to unrestrained capitalism. Everybody gets to make, buy and use whatever they want without regard to how it affects the sustainability of the environment and everyone in it. Drilling in the Gulf, the Arctic or anywhere, hydrofracking in New York, Pennsylvania or anywhere, turning food like corn into oil that can be burned, all make carbon based fuels that contribute to global warming.

The growing list of minor chores that we once did with cranks, like grinding coffee, requires more power for which more carbon based fuel is burned. Planning buildings without regard to natural cooling requires maximum use of power hungry air conditioners. This is capitalist freedom to do whatever we want. And the earth is fighting back. 

Supreme Court Plays Guardian Counsel in the Health Care Argument

Let’s understand what that argument about the health insurance mandate was about. Everybody agreed that a single payer system would have been constitutionally OK. It would have been based on the taxing power. However toxic taxes are to the public, legally they are not particularly toxic. Everyone admits the taxing power is broad.

Veterans

Dr. Ed Tick, an internationally known psychologist and founder of Soldiers Heart, came to speak at Albany Law a few days ago about the problems that combat veterans have reentering society.

Some of what he told us stunned me. Veterans comprise half the homeless population in the U.S.