Thorfinn's pensioners are in little danger, IMO. The shrimp industry cried "foul" and blocked ports in LA when Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) were mandated, claiming it would destroy the industry. Well, it's still doing as well as it was. Fact is, once the TED became mandatory, industry suddenly found a way of making it dirt cheap. Industry will cry "the sky is falling" just as much as eco-nuts will - human nature. Until the thing (TEDs) became a needed commodity, they were very expensive. After they became universally mandated, they got cheap.
Oh, might this refute Thorfinn's argument that the government can't be an economic impactor? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] Sometimes industry will happily kill us all to make a buck or two without spending that extra penny here or there to mitigate its harm. Either (1) laws and courts are strong enough to kick it in the ass for doing this or (2) the government mandates controls that kick it in the ass for doing this or (3) we die - well, you get the drift despite my hyperbole. So, the "kick in the ass" in the TED instance was effectively adjusting the market to add the appropriate value to something - done through mandating the thing be used. Tons of other examples exist. SO2 and NOx emission credits are waaayy below what they were initially thought to cost. Mandate the emission reductions and *poof* suddenly someone has reason to invent the widget to make it cheap.
[ 04-22-2003, 06:16 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]