Herman Cain on American Live W/Megyn Kelly

Herman Cain was on Fox this afternoon, and I have to say I agree with everything he said. Unfortunately he left out the part on how government regulations have been the biggest deterrent to business and opportunity in America. The best example I can give comes from a book I bought to use for a essay some years ago. I never finished that essay my English teacher then was one of those you can't write the title this way or that way. Anyway, the book is "The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads" by John F. Stover and series editor: Mark C. Carnes, the example is from the chapter "Midcentury Problems" the last paragraph of pg116 and first paragraph of pg117,

"In the 1950s there was little letup in the federal regulation of railroads. Railways were still subject to the same regulations of service, rates, and fares as in the days when the indeed possessed a full traffic and travel monopoly. The ICC required that railroads keep 258 types of records while the airlines had to keep only a fifth as many. A railroad could not close a depot, discontinue a train, or hike a fare without requesting ICC approval. As a Boston & Main Railroad official put it, "Every rate case has become a carnival of oratory.""
(ICC was the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was abolished in 1995.)

As you can read/see even as far back as the 1950s, and we conservatives know all about FDR's actions, government regulations have tied the hands of business. When you need to close a poor preforming depot, or a train that needs to be discontinued, that isn't making the company any profit you can not force that company to have to wait for government approval to do those things while it loses money on those things without serious consequences to that company. And the requirement that the railroads had to keep 258 types of records versus the 52 types the airlines had to keep only increased the costs to the railroads making it even harder to compete with the new form of travel, or maintain their properties.

When they originally created the ICC it was meant to protect the public, but it ended up harming the public. Because of the ICC the railroads deteriorated from what they had been over a hundred years ago and probably made the airlines what they are today. And now we come full circle with people, like Bill O'Rilly, demanding the regulation of the airlines. Look I have heard the horror stories in all medias, but their is an old saying that Judge Joe Brown is always telling people, Caveat Emptor, let the buyer beware, if the airlines are abusing people then the people should vote with their feet. It isn't cheap to fly a passenger plane and if they fly a plane with only a few passengers without some kind of extremely profitable cargo they will lose money and be forced to reexamine how they treat passengers.

And in case some one should say something about fraud, we have laws that protect us from fraud, such as when someone is selling us things like snake oil, lets say they claim that their "oil" will cure cancer, and if it doesn't that's fraud.

Solomon.

P.S. And for some fun for my fellow conservatives, if you know some one who is always claiming Jimmy Carter was a "good" president, I have a curve ball you can through them to see their reaction, In the last months of his presidency he favored legislation that would, to a degree, deregulate the nations railroads, the Staggers Rail Act, which he signed on October 14, 1980. Tell them that Jimmy Carter was in favor of deregulation of the nations railroads and watch them some will claim you're making it up, some will like it, and some will become angry at Carter for wanting to deregulate a big business.