Modern business and big government
DM:
Businesses are trying to gain market advantage, not by being competitive on service, products, and prices, but by getting the government to tilt the odds laws in their favor.
This is nothing new, really, and is like some forms of protectionism. Quite a lot of licensed professions merely serve as a racket for controlling entry into particular business and generating revenues for the state. Do you really need a license, for instance, to paint someone’s fingernails or sell homes? Sure, some jobs may actually require a certification for safety or competency reasons but given the current state of our legal system, I’d rather have a lawyer who was smart than one that just had a license.
And I say that as a CPA.
July 17th, 2012 at 9:44 am
And I agree with you, and I say that as a licensed Professional Engineer (Electrical).
July 17th, 2012 at 9:45 am
I don’t have an issue with licenses and certifications as much as I do with making them mandatory. If people care about a massage therapist being certified, they can look for it on your wall. Some would be perfectly happy going to someone their friends recommend, license or not.
July 17th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Thanks for the link. I agree with laughingdog: I don’t see why a person should be forced to have a license. Abraham Lincoln, with only one year of elementary school education, would never be allowed to take the bar exam today.
Of course, private certification is often worthless, which is why businesses pay to be the “official widget maker of …”
July 17th, 2012 at 11:19 am
“I don’t have an issue with licenses and certifications as much as I do with making them mandatory.”
To engage in the activity, “licenses” are, by definition, mandatory. License: permission to do that which is otherwise illegal.
For those who “need” some assurance that the provider is competent, I am in favor of certification. Where the only person affected is the purchaser of the service I’m absolutely against “licenses”. Where those affected don’t have a choice about being affected, licenses seem to be appropriate.
Licenses “good”:
Nuclear power plant
Oil refinery
Chlorine production plant
Licenses “bad”:
Hair salon
Saloon
Doctor
July 17th, 2012 at 11:49 am
I believe the CPA exam is tougher than the bar exam. So if you get a CPA who is a lawyer that has WIN written all over it.
My only certification is in emergency communications. Damn…….
July 17th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
As a lawyer, I often ask my lawyer friend who would be better able to represent them in a drunk driving case: Me, who passed the bar but practices a completely differnt form of law and who has little courtroom experience, or some highschool dropout who only does drunk driving and other traffic cases. Then I ask who could afford to do it cheaper. That usually makes my point quite well. After all, the drop out would likely be better and cheaper than the licensed “professional”.
July 17th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Take it a step further…do we need to have so many medicines requring a prescription? What would happen to healthcare costs in general if anyone could go buy anti-biotics over the counter?
In many cases, you would want a recommendation from a Dr…but the fact you have to go to a Hospital or Dr’s office to get yet another ZPAC for your Sinus infection or some real deal prevacid…is absurd.
July 17th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
HL: What would happen to healthcare costs in general if anyone could go buy anti-biotics over the counter?
They’d increase, because the average fool would breed resistant strains of everything, by stopping too soon or taking them when they have a viral infection (and thus giving any bacteria in their system an additional chance to breed some immunity).
Antibiotics are the one thing I support keeping controlled by the Doctor-Monopoly, for that very reason of harmful externalities.
(To reduce up-front costs around that, let monopoly-licensed Nurses do the RX; they can make sure you Actually Probably Have A Bacterial Infection and then remind you to take the whole damned course.
I’d croak about that being horribly paternalistic except for two problems:
1) People are demonstrably stupid about that
combined with [and only relevant because of]
2) There’s a huge external cost to innocent third parties when they manage to breed a resistant bacterial strain.)
July 17th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
“What would happen to healthcare costs in general if anyone could go buy anti-biotics over the counter”
Um, You can. Go to any feed store.
July 17th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
The world looks more like “Atlas Shrugged” every day.