Congress has passed or contemplated so many blunders of late that I, for one, am finding it harder and harder to muster fresh outrage toward every new one. But this latest being cooked up by Chris Dodd deserves a special shout out:
First, Dodd’s bill would require startups raising funding to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then wait 120 days for the SEC to review their filing. A second provision raises the wealth requirements for an “accredited investor” who can invest in startups — if the bill passes, investors would need assets of more than $2.3 million (up from $1 million) or income of more than $450,000 (up from $250,000). The third restriction removes the federal pre-emption allowing angel and venture financing in the United States to follow federal regulations, rather than face different rules between states.
All the prerogatives over private businesses; all the power over health care, now near absolute; all the dabbling in the inner workings of financial institutions; in short, all the regulation in the world, cannot seem to satisfy this government. Are the Democrat legislators ever going to have enough? Or is their regulatory fetish feverishly looking for new, exotic objects?
While Obama sheds crocodile tears over how hard startups have it, his henchman is working night and day to ensure that they never receive seed funding. Whichever way this bill is looked at, not a single rationalization for saddling angels with such burdens can be found. Unless, of course, Democratic legislators so believe in their own rhetoric of strife against them big, eeeevil corporations that they want to kill them in their womb or prevent them form ever being born, let along growing big. And if such is the motive, conscious or unconscious, no measures could backfire more sorely than the ones being dealt out. For any regulation that raises new barriers to entry eventually hinders competition, confers undue advantages to incumbents, and fosters just the kind of environment where oligopolies can flourish. If there ever were such a sinister monolithic entity as “Big Business,” it could not be more satisfied with this bill. But it is surely an occasion for entrepreneurs to weep, as I can attest from being married to one, all of whose startups owe their inception to angel investment and might have never come into existence under such debilitating regulation. Economic recovery in America is being dealt a crippling blow.
The fact that Novak didn’t kill the man is not “just a coincidence.” Novak did not kill the man because he either was not driving fast enough or did not make a direct enough hit. As Yglesias points out, it’s quite easy to kill a human being with a car. But it has to be driven fast enough and it has to make a solid hit. Novak apparently did neither, and the consequence of these responsible choices are that the man survived.
Yea, but no one wrote about that 20-something sexy blond in the car next to Novak or that space alien hidden in the back seat.
“Criminal driving”? Sheesh. Novak was cited with a violation; he wasn’t arrested.
Oh, and cars aren’t supposed to share space with human beings, or pedestrians, for that matter.
The only crime committed is: Yglesias’s use of the terms criminal driving, morally speaking, and piloting; and characterizing minor injuries resulting from an accident as a coincidence. A coincidence? Yglesias needs a dictionary. Other than that, what’s the point of the story?
Hysteria is a hallmark of today’s Left. Expect the outlandish and bombastic.
Hey, but at least Yglesias didn’t get his “perch” by toweling off Marty Peretz, right?
Poor jealous Jamie. I’m sure Marty promised you a plum gig like Yglesias’ too, right after that stint as his hype-man underling…
I wasn’t going to weigh in on this, figuring the scales are already out of balance. But sheesh, Yglesias’ righteous huff about piloting cars in an illegal manner being serious wrongdoing is so — intemperate and leftish.
Take it up with the DC council, Yglesias. If you think “piloting cars in an illegal manner” warrants more stringent punishment, then work to get the law changed, like a sensible, rule-of-law American. Don’t just fling accusations at people, hoping to heap shame on them, with no accountable standard or purpose for trying to destroy them.
This urge is the same one that governs collectivist group “correction,” a la the Soviet and Maoist collectives. It’s why so many pundits on the Left love to contemplate seeing their political targets frog-marched, while they howl in unison like coyotes. As with the insane Valerie Plame fracas, there doesn’t have to even be an actual, underlying crime: the point is to ruin people through the sustained pointing of fingers and reiteration of unaccountable accusations.
Yglesias would no doubt be fully in sync with a new procedure being considered by California’s legislature, to put color-coded emission stickers on vehicles. All tested vehicles would wear stickers, with different colors signifying the level of pollutants being belched out.
There is no valid purpose in law for this distinction among vehicles. Either they are within standards or they are not. If not, they can’t be licensed for operation, and have to be brought within standards. If they ARE within standards, no purpose of law is being served by coding them visually as to level of emissions. This measure would serve no purpose other than providing a visual cue as to which within-standards vehicles are higher emitters.
The only reason for wanting such a visual aid is to (a) shame vehicle owners, and (b) wriggle towards tightening emission standards through the back door, by providing counties and cities a pretext for, say, banning certain traffic on “high-pollution-index” days — without having to address that through the legislative process in Sacramento.
Yglesias would approve.
Dontcha jes’ love dinalicar’s substantive criticism?