My Friends In The Government

I know a lot of people who either work or have worked for the Federal, state or local governments. That actually makes up the majority of people who are my age or older that I know. I know a pretty good amount of people who are much younger than me and they are just about all in private industry. Oddly enough the government people are more conservative than the private industry ones.

The current conservative belief is that we should have less regulation and all of my friends from government circles agree. We read that government employees like regulation, the fact is, none that I know. I find this interesting. I should also note that nobody I know has come out in favor of unions. I should repeat something I have said before, all my friends are more conservative than me even the younger ones. In a lot of ways I am more liberal than my kids.

The point is that I am possibly the only person I interact with that is for increasing certain types of regulations. Now, some of my conservative friends believe we need certain types of regulations to protect consumers and citizens from fraud or other crimes; but, by and large my friends are all for less regulation. I think deregulation has been a nightmare and would put more controls on banks. I would return to making it illegal for regular banks (the ones you put your deposits in) to gamble with our money like investment banks do. I don't want banks gambling with my life savings. If I want to gamble with my money then I will and expect to keep all the winnings.

The Guardian - Nestlé boss says he wants to bottle more water in California despite drought. The State of California is going through a drought. Water is being denied to farmers and that is our number one industry. People are not allowed to water their lawns daily and all types of water restrictions are in place. Yet, Nestle is bottling water that it is drawing from underground wells in California and sell it in other states. Huh??? In fact, the CEO of Nestle has said he will continue taking water from California and would take even more if he could, read the linked article. Why does the state allow this? If they can limit the use by residents, why doesn't it allow exporting water from California? Why are the state and local politicians not even addressing this issue? The state of California is limiting much water use to protect a fish; but, won't do the same to protect our farms and their constituents.

The system is broke, not because we have too much regulations; but, because our regulations don't benefit the majority of us, the regulations only benefit the people they are meant to regulate anymore. The solution is not to eliminate regulations but to make them work for the states residents rather than just a few people.