Jacob vs. The Government, Round II

Being out in the real world for the first time I am directly exposed to harm caused by government. My antipathy towards political power has evolved from a theoretical construct to personal experience. I am witnessing how government often provides a tripping foot but seldom a helping hand.

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I had another tangle with City Hall yesterday. I got up at 7 AM and waded my way through Atlanta traffic in hopes of getting a license to do business.

Walking across the marble floor of City Hall, I wondered how much tax money was spent on the spectacular building. The elevator also had a marble floor, trimmed with shiny brass. As the door slid shut, I turned arround and saw a sign that read, "The City of Atlanta, committed to serving YOU."

It was during normal business hours, so the line in the licensing office was short. I filled out the license application form and handed it to the receptionist. "You need to get zoning to sign off on this.", she said and directed me to the zoning office.

I wondered why a man needed to get permission to do business in his own home.

Behind the desks in the zoning office sat grocery carts filled with paper work. Looking at the thick, three-foot long rolls of triplicate forms I was simultaneously happy that I wasn't one of the poor schmucks applying for a building license and filled with pity for those who were.

My adventure in line-waiting ended up being a waste of time. I live across the city line, so I have to go to another City Hall on Thursday and reapply.

There was another guy in line who had it worse than me. He simply wanted permission to build two buildings for himself; he didn't want to sell anything at all. But the city still wanted him to get a business license. He had to sit through all the lines and fill out all the same paperwork that I did simply for permission to use his own land.

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I moved in to a new apartment on Saturday. One of my roomates was a day late returning from a weekend trip to a music festival in Asheville, NC. The reason? He was in prison.

While at a music festival he and his friends were caught doing drugs by undercover police officers. They were hauled away in a paddy wagon filled with other non-violent offenders and kept for the weekend in a prison cell. Now he faces hefty penalties, including jail time, unless his attourney can work some legal magic. If he does go to jail he'll certainly lose his job.

More than 80% of drug offenders in the North Carolina penal system were arrested for simple possession.

I wondered why the penalties for drug use should be more harmful than the drugs themselves.

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I interviewed at Bear Sterns today for a position providing sales support to their highest volume fixed-income broker. The woman interviewing me mentioned how hard new laws and regulations have made it for them to do business. In her words, the brokerage business "is a lot less fun than it used to be".

For example, the SEC is now limiting the number of accounts a single person is allowed to day-trade on the stock market. Bear Sterns' day-traders will either have to quit their jobs or stop trading their own personal accounts. Their livelihoods have been severely affected, a hidden cost of SEC regulation.

New brokers joining Bear Sterns have to hand over much more information about their clients than they used to, including copies of their driver's licenses. All of the information the brokers collect is carefully scrutinized by the government. Customers, mostly older individuals who are used to having things done their way, are understandably upset.

A Georgia accent, heretofore dormant, suddenly manifested itself in my interviewer, "Big Brotha is heeya", she said.

Most of these new rules come from the infamous Sarbanes-Oxley act. The cost of being a public company rose 45% from 2003 to 2004 for companies with revenue over $1 billion a year as a result of the phase in of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.

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The Buddha taught people about conditioned arrising, a long chain of casuality that shows all suffering is eventually caused by ignorance. In the democratic process, the ignorance and fear of the populace is exploited for political ends.

Following the genuine crimes of the executives at Enron, politicians found out that being "tough on white-collar crime" was good for winning votes. Thus they passed laws that punished thousands of innocent financial workers. In the process, they won praise from media pundits and scored points with constituents ignorant of the financial world.

Citizens, miseducated in government schools from an early age, overestimate the harm and severity of drug use. When a politician promises to levy insanely disproportional penalties on drug offenders they win votes and acclaim. Thus prisons are filled with non-violent "criminals".

7.5% of Georgia's adult population is supervised by the penal system.

And lastly, ignorance of the workings of the free market causes city authorities and residents to think licenses and careful supervision of firms is necessary. They do not see the true cost of the mountains of red tape: businesses not opened, jobs not created, and value not added. Opportunity costs are ignored.

Ignorance lies at the heart of the government beast.