Category: Regulations

Cuts in Red Tape Build Business Confidence

TrumpCutsRedTape2018-01-31.jpg“President Trump described his administration’s deregulation efforts in remarks at the White House on Thursday. He then stood between two piles of paper representing government regulations in 1960, (20,000 pages, he said), and today — a pile that was about six feet tall (said to be 185,000 pages).” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A22) WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Thursday that his administration was answering “a call to action” by rolling back regulations on environmental protections, health care, financial services and other industries as he made a push to showcase his accomplishments near the end of his first year in office.
The remarks highlighted an area where Mr. Trump has perhaps done more to change the policies of his predecessor than any other, with regulatory shifts that have affected wide sections of the economy.
. . .
Echoing his days as a real estate developer with the flair of a groundbreaking, Mr. Trump used an oversize pair of scissors to cut a ribbon his staff had set up in front of two piles of paper, representing government regulations in 1960 (20,000 pages, he said), and today — a pile that was about six feet tall (said to be 185,000 pages).
. . .
. . . , several economic indicators — and comments from companies large and small — suggest that a shift in federal regulatory policy is building business confidence and accelerating economic growth, developments Mr. Trump certainly took credit for on Thursday [December 14, 2017].
A survey of chief executives released this month by the Business Roundtable found that, for the first time in six years, executives did not cite regulation as the top cost pressure facing their companies.
“C.E.O.s appear to be responding to the administration’s energetic focus on regulation,” Joshua Bolten, the roundtable’s president, said this month.

For the full story, see:

ERIC LIPTON and DANIELLE IVORY. “Most Far-Reaching’ Rollback of Rule.” The New York Times (Sat., DEC. 15, 2017): A22.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 14, 2017, and has the title “Trump Says His Regulatory Rollback Already Is the ‘Most Far-Reaching’.” The online page for this article says that it appeared on p. A16 of the New York edition. My page number above is from my paper, which was probably the midwest edition.)

Trump Argues Regulations Impede Infrastructure Investment

(p. A18) Mr. Trump is pursuing a similar shift in regulation, seeking to reverse or rewrite a host of rules intended to protect workers and consumers, under the theory that freeing companies from “red tape” will allow businesses to prosper, with wide-ranging benefits.
In remarks at the White House last week, Mr. Trump argued that regulation was impeding private investment in infrastructure. He held up a long, multicolored chart that he said reflected the permitting process for the construction of “a highway or a roadway.”
“By the time you finished, you probably gave up,” Mr. Trump said.

For the full story, see:
BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ANA SWANSON. “Trump Bets on Business to Lift Workers.” The New York Times (Thurs., December 21, 2017): A18.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 20, 2017, and has the title “Republican Economic Policies Put Business First.” The online version says that the page number for the print New York edition was A19. My print paper was probably the midwest edition.)

Firms Invest in France as Rules “Make It Easier to Hire and Fire”

(p. B1) PARIS — The announcements came in a steady drumbeat. Around 1,300 job cuts at France’s biggest automaker. At least 2,500 at France’s largest supermarket chain. Over 200 sought at a major clothing retailer. And thousands more are on the way.
Just weeks after France’s labor overhaul went into effect, companies are readily taking advantage of new rules that make it easier to hire and fire.
. . .
Perceptions of France, long derided as a difficult place to do business for its onerous labor rules, are changing.
Growth has recently picked up after being stagnant for nearly five years. And there are signs that the changes, a major piece of the president’s economic program, are drawing the interest of investors.
Amazon will open a new distribution center south of Paris this year, creating over 1,000 jobs. Facebook and Google announced Monday they would invest in artificial intelligence development in France. Also Monday, Toyota announced it would invest 300 million euros, or $367 million, to increase capacity at a plant in northern (p. B3) France, creating up to 700 jobs through 2020.
“The complex labor laws have historically been the No. 1 obstacle to the competitiveness and attractiveness of France,” said Olivier Marchal, the chairman of Bain & Company France, a business consulting firm. The changes, together with other business-friendly measures such as a gradual reduction in the corporate tax, have “drastically changed investor perceptions,” he said.

For the full story, see:
LIZ ALDERMAN. “Newfound Freedom … to Fire.” The New York Times (Weds., January 24, 2018): B1 & B3.
(Note: ellipsis in article title, in original; ellipsis between quoted paragraphs, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 23, 2018, and has the title “French Companies Have Newfound Freedom … to Fire.”)

Apple Orchard Must Focus on “Placating a Government Regulator”

(p. A1) ALTAMONT, N.Y. — For eight weeks every fall, Indian Ladder Farms, a fifth-generation family operation near Albany, kicks into peak season.
The farm sells homemade apple pies, fresh cider and warm doughnuts. Schoolchildren arrive by the busload to learn about growing apples. And as customers pick fruit from trees, workers fill bins with apples, destined for the farm’s shop and grocery stores.
This fall, amid the rush of commerce — the apple harvest season accounts for about half of Indian Ladder’s annual revenue — federal investigators showed up. They wanted to check the farm’s compliance with migrant labor rules and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets pay and other requirements for workers.
Suddenly, the small office staff turned its focus away from making money to placating a government regulator.
The investigators arrived on a Friday in late September and interviewed the farm’s management and a group of laborers from Jamaica, who have special work visas. The investigators hand delivered a notice and said they would be back the following week, when they asked to have 22 types of records available. The request included vehicle registrations, insurance documents and time sheets — reams of paper in all.
Over the next several days, the Ten Eyck family, which owns the farm, along with the staff devoted about 40 hours to serving the investigators, who visited three times before closing the books.
“It is terribly disruptive,” said Peter G. Ten Eyck II, 79, who runs the farm along with a daughter (p. A14) and son. “And the dimension that doesn’t get mentioned is the psychological hit: They are there to find something wrong with you. And then they are going to fine you.”
This is life on the farm — and at businesses of all sorts. With thick rule books laying out food safety procedures, compliance costs in the tens of thousands of dollars and ever-changing standards from the government and industry groups, local produce growers are a textbook example of what many business owners describe as regulatory fatigue.
Over the past five decades, Mr. Ten Eyck said, there has been an unending layering of new rules and regulations on his farm of over 300 acres, as more government agencies have taken an interest in nearly every aspect of growing food, and those agencies already involved have become even more so.
Now, a new rule is going into effect that will significantly expand the oversight of one regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, at the farm.
. . .
Researchers at the Mercatus Center, a conservative-leaning economic think tank at George Mason University, say apple orchards are facing a growing federal regulatory burden. Quantifying that burden is difficult, but using a computer algorithm that analyzes regulations through keyword searches, researchers from the center’s RegData Project estimated the federal regulatory code contains 12,000 restrictions and rules on orchards, up from about 9,500, or an increase of 26 percent, from a decade ago.
Many of those rules apply to other businesses as well, and some restrict the actions of government regulators, not the orchard owners. Using the Mercatus Center data, and screening for such exceptions, The New York Times identified at least 17 federal regulations with about 5,000 restrictions and rules that were relevant to orchards.
. . .
. . . regulation streamlining is a winning message across the political spectrum when it comes to making life easier for small businesses, according to more than 20 interviews with business owners and others in the produce industry.
Industry by industry, small businesses have been lobbying governments — from town health departments to federal cabinet agencies — to simplify rules and eradicate redundancy.
. . .
The grievances relate largely to the sheer amount of time and money that it takes to comply, and what farmers see as a disconnect between them — the rule followers — and the rule makers, who Mr. Ten Eyck describes as “people looking at a computer screen dreaming up stuff.”
“The intentions are not bad,” he said. “It is just that one layer after another gets to be — trying to top the people before them.”

For the full story, see:
STEVE EDER. “One Apple Orchard and 5,000 Government Rules.” The New York Times (Thurs., December 28, 2017): A1 & A14-A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 27, 2017, and has the title “When Picking Apples on a Farm With 5,000 Rules, Watch Out for the Ladders.”)

“New Jerseyans Are More Flammable than People in the Other 49 States”

(p. A17) At 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, New Jersey became the last state in the nation where drivers are not allowed to pump their own gasoline around the clock.
. . .
It is a distinction that makes Declan J. O’Scanlon Jr., a state lawmaker, spout frustration by the gallon.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Mr. O’Scanlon, a Republican assemblyman from Monmouth County who will soon take a seat in the State Senate. “If I want to pull in, get in and out quickly, I should be able to do so.”
Mr. O’Scanlon said that he frequently pumps his own gas, ignoring the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act of 1949, the statute that first forbade civilians from putting their grubby hands on the nozzle.
. . .
New Jersey legislators cited safety concerns when they passed the original law that barred residents from pumping gas almost 70 years ago. But when gas station owners challenged the ban in 1951, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that self-serve was indeed “dangerous in use.” And the ban held up, despite attempts to fight it in the 1980s.
In the rest of the country, self-service stations became the norm. Safer unleaded gasoline became more common, thanks to federal regulations, as did pumps that accepted credit cards. In most of the United States, that spelled the end of an era when attendants offered to wipe your windshield and check your oil while the tank filled up and you fumbled for a tip.
Mr. O’Scanlon is undeterred by the dual weights of history and public opinion. He said that he may bring a new proposal this year, just to keep the conversation alive. He said that economic arguments about jobs and safety are absurd, given that drivers in other states have been pumping their own gas for decades and lived to tell the tale.
“The only thing you could argue is that New Jerseyans are more flammable than people in the other 49 states,” he said. “Because we eat so much oily pizza, funnel cake and fries, maybe you could make that argument. Otherwise, it’s simply ridiculous.”

For the full story, see:
JONAH ENGEL BROMWICH. “New Jersey Is Last State to Insist at Gas Stations: Don’t Touch That Pump.” The New York Times (Sat., JAN. 6, 2018): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 5, 2018.)

Health Info from Apple Watches Will Allow Patients to “Take More Control”

(p. B1) SAN FRANCISCO — In the last months of Steve Jobs’s life, the Apple co-founder fought cancer while managing diabetes.
Because he hated pricking his finger to draw blood, Mr. Jobs authorized an Apple research team to develop a noninvasive glucose reader with technology that could potentially be incorporated into a wristwatch, according to people familiar with the events, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.
. . .
In September [2017], Apple announced that the Apple Watch would no longer need to be tethered to a smartphone and would become more of a stand-alone device. Since then, a wave of device manufacturers have tapped into the watch’s new features like cellular connectivity to develop medical accessories — such as an electrocardiogram for monitoring heart activity — so people can manage chronic conditions straight from their wrist.
. . .
(p. B4) A digital health revolution has been predicted for years, of course, and so far has been more hype than progress. But the hope is that artificial intelligence systems will sift through the vast amounts of data that medical accessories will collect from the Apple Watch and find patterns that can lead to changes in treatment and detection, enabling people to take more control of how they manage their conditions instead of relying solely on doctors.
Vic Gundotra, chief executive of AliveCor, a start-up that makes portable electrocardiograms, said this would put patients on a more equal footing with doctors because they would have more information on their own conditions.
“It’s changing the nature of the relationship between patient and doctor,” he said, adding that doctors will no longer be “high priests.”
. . .
Apple is also looking at potentially building an electrocardiogram into future models of the Apple Watch, according to a person familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were confidential. It is unclear whether the EKG development, earlier reported by Bloomberg, would be introduced; such a product would most likely require F.D.A. clearance.
Separately, Apple is continuing research on a noninvasive continuous glucose reader, according to two people with knowledge of the project. The technology is still considered to be years away, industry experts said.
The current solution used by many diabetics is also coming to the Apple Watch. Dexcom, a maker of devices measuring blood sugar levels for diabetics, said it was awaiting F.D.A. approval for a continuous glucose monitor to work directly with the Apple Watch. Continuous glucose monitors use small sensors to pierce the skin to track blood sugar levels and relay those readings through a wireless transmitter.

For the full story, see:
DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI. “As Wearable Devices Evolve, The Apple Watch Offers an EKG.” The New York Times (Weds., December 27, 2017): B1 & B4.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 26, 2017, and has the title “Freed From the iPhone, the Apple Watch Finds a Medical Purpose.”)

Supersonic Technology Constrained by Regulators

(p. B5) Japan Airlines Co. 9201 -0.09% has become the first carrier to invest in Boom Technology Inc., a U.S. startup seeking to build a faster-than-sound airliner capable of flying more than four dozen premium passengers to Tokyo from the West Coast in roughly five hours.
. . .
With a one-third scale version now scheduled to start flight tests in late 2018–nearly a year later than initially planned–JAL’s involvement is expected to influence cabin design and various operational issues. Blake Scholl, Boom’s founder and chief executive, said such cooperation is intended “to determine whether airlines will really be happy to have this airliner in their fleets,” including from a maintenance perspective.
. . .
Boom’s project has initial support from several venture funds and is taking an unusual approach by adopting various technologies already certified by regulators.

For the full story, see:
Andy Pasztor. “Supersonic Jet Gets Boost.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Dec. 6, 2017): B5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 5, 2017, and has the title “Japan Airlines Invests in Fledgling Supersonic Aircraft Company.” The online version differs significantly in wording from the print version. Where different, the passages quoted above, follow the online wording.)

Hundreds of Thousands of Californians Moving to Texas, Arizona and Nevada

(p. A18) For more than three decades, California has seen a net outflow of residents to other states, as less expensive southern cities like Phoenix, Houston and Raleigh supplant those of the Golden State as beacons of opportunity.
. . .
. . . , for many Californians, the question is always sitting there: Is this worth it? Natural disasters are a moment to take stock and rethink the dream. But in the end, the calculation almost always comes down to cost.
. . .
California was once a migration magnet, but since 2010 the state has lost more than two million residents 25 and older, including 220,000 who moved to Texas, according to census data. Arizona and Nevada have each welcomed about 180,000 California expatriates since the start of the decade.

For the full story, see:
CONOR DOUGHERTY. “Californians Brave Fires, but Flee Cost of Living.” The New York Times (Weds., DEC. 13, 2017): A1 & A18.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 12, 2017, and has the title “Quakes and Fires? It’s the Cost of Living That Californians Can’t Stomach.”)

Enforcing New Blood Pressure Guidelines May Lead to Serious Falls

(p. A23) “Under New Guidelines, Millions More Americans Will Need to Lower Blood Pressure.” This is the type of headline that raises my blood pressure to dangerously high levels.
. . .
The new recommendation is principally in response to the results of a large, federally funded study called Sprint that was published in 2015 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
. . .
A blood pressure of 130 in the Sprint study may be equivalent to a blood pressure of 140, even 150, in a busy clinic. A national goal of 130 as measured in actual practice may lead many to be overmedicated — making their blood pressures too low.
. . .
Serious falls are common among older adults. In the real world, will a nationwide target of 130, and the side effects of medication lowering blood pressure, lead to more hip fractures? Ask your doctors. See what they think.
. . .
I suspect many primary-care practitioners will want to ignore this new target. They understand the downsides of the relentless expansion of medical care into the lives of more people. At the same time, I fear many will be coerced into compliance as the health care industry’s middle management translates the 130 target into a measure of physician performance. That will push doctors to meet the target using whatever means necessary — and that usually means more medications.
So focusing on the number 130 not only will involve millions of people but also will involve millions of new prescriptions and millions of dollars. And it will further distract doctors and their patients from activities that aren’t easily measured by numbers, yet are more important to health — real food, regular movement and finding meaning in life. These matter whatever your blood pressure is.

For the full commentary, see:
H. GILBERT WELCH. “Rethinking Blood Pressure Advice.” The New York Times (Thurs., NOV. 16, 2017): A23.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date NOV. 15, 2017, and has the title “Don’t Let New Blood Pressure Guidelines Raise Yours.”)

Welch has a book that makes a similar point, though more broadly, to that made in the passages quoted above:
Welch, H. Gilbert. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2015.

France’s “Mille-Feuille” Regulations

(p. A1) France has long been known for its open hostility to corporations and its suspicion of personal wealth. Taxes were high, regulations were baffling and “It’s not possible” was the default answer to any question — if a company could even find the right person to ask.
Now, the country is in the midst of a sweeping attempt at national rebranding. Labor laws are being changed to make hiring and firing easier. New legislation has slashed a “wealth tax” that was said to drive millionaires out of the country.
. . .
(p. A5) “When you grow up in France, none of the heroes you learn about are entrepreneurs,” said Brigitte Granville, a professor of economics at Queen Mary University of London, who was raised in France. “When someone gets rich in France, people immediately ask, ‘What did he do to make this money? He must be a nasty person.'”
. . .
Now, a new crop of French leaders, most notably the free market-supporting president, Emmanuel Macron, are vigorously trying to shed this anticapitalist reputation. During his campaign, he visited London, home to as many as 400,000 French expatriates, urging them to return to France and “innovate.”
. . .
France’s economic makeover has inspired some derision outside of the country, too. It has the faint smell of desperation to people like Nicolas Mackel, the chief executive of Luxembourg for Finance, a public-private partnership that promotes the country as a business hub.
. . .
“You’ll accuse me of bashing the French,” he said over tea recently, “but earlier this year, they announced that they would have regulators who speak English. We didn’t need to do that because our regulators already speak English and always have.”
For France, English-speaking government officials would be little more than a promising start. The country has so many bewildering layers of regulations that its system is known, unaffectionately, as mille-feuille, a reference to a densely layered pastry.

For the full story, see:
DAVID SEGAL. “Paris Tries On A Fresh Look: Less Red Tape.” The New York Times (Mon., DEC. 11, 2017): A1 & A5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 10, 2017, and has the title “As Brexit Looms, Paris Tries a Business Makeover.”)

Socialized Medicine “Mummifies Its Doctors in Spools of Red Tape”

(p. A17) One of the reasons patients find condescension from doctors especially loathsome is that it diminishes them — if you’re gravely ill, the last thing you need is further diminishment. But the desires of patients, Marsh notes, are often paradoxical. They also pine for supreme confidence in their physicians, surgeons especially, because they’ve left their futures — the very possibility of one at all, in some cases — in their doctors’ custody. “So we quickly learn to deceive,” Marsh writes, “to pretend to a greater level of competence and knowledge than we know to be the case, and try to shield our patients a little from the frightening reality they often face.”
Over time, Marsh writes, many doctors start to internalize the stories they tell themselves about their superior judgment and skill. But the best, he adds, unlearn their self-deceptions, and come to accept their fallibility and learn from their mistakes. “We always learn more from failure than from success,” he writes. “Success teaches us nothing.”
This was a prominent theme in Marsh’s last book, and readers may have a sense of déjà vu while reading this one. Like “Do No Harm,” “Admissions” is wandering and ruminative, an overland trek through the doctor’s anxieties and private shames. Once again, he recounts his miscalculations and surgical catastrophes, citing the French doctor René Leriche’s observation that all surgeons carry cemeteries within themselves of the patients whose lives they’ve lost. Once again, he rails against the constraints of an increasingly depersonalized British health care system, which mummifies its doctors in spools of red tape. Once again, he describes his operating theater in all of its Grand Guignol splendor, with brains swelling beyond their skulls and suction devices “slurping obscenely” as tumors evade his reach.

For the full review, see:
JENNIFER SENIOR. “Books of The Times; Surgical Catastrophes, Private Shames.” The New York Times (Sat., Oct. 7, 2017): A17.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Oct. 5, 2017, and has the title “Books of The Times; A Surgeon Not Afraid to Face His Mistakes, In and Out of the Operating Room.)

The book under review, is:
Marsh, Henry. Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2017.