Related — Liberty v License
A fun fact: The emergency medical technician (EMT) responsible for aiding the victim of a car accident undergoes, on average, 33 days of training. The cosmetologist whose salon that driver just left studied for 372 days.
That the typical rescue worker requires fewer hours of training than the typical manicurist, barber, and interior designer is the upside-down result of occupational licensing, the wormhole of training courses, examinations, fees, and other hoop-jumping required by many states to ply a number of trades. As unions decline, occupational-licensing requirements are on the rise, facilitated by back-scratching among industries and legislators both state and federal.
In 2012, the Institute for Justice (IJ) released a study identifying 102 occupations that require licensing somewhere in the nation and in which practitioners made less than the national average income: EMT and cosmetologist are on the list, as are preschool teacher, vegetation-pesticide handler, florist, and a host of others. According to economists Morris Kleiner and Alan Krueger, just over one-third of jobs in the United States today require some sort of licensing. […]
The result, says Texas’s attorney general Greg Abbott, is “reduced job growth, decreased competition, higher prices, and discouraged innovation and investment.” Abbott, who is the Lone Star State’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, has a plan to fix that.
Texas requires licenses for only 34 of the 102 occupations IJ names, but IJ ranks the state’s overall licensing requirements — which apply to some 150 trades — 17th most burdensome in the country. “On average,” Abbott’s plan notes, “Texas’ regulation of the 102 identified professions requires an average of $304 in fees, 326 days of training, and two examinations.” Those requirements lock many people out of the job market, especially minorities, who already tend to be at an economic disadvantage. […]
Abbott’s plan would abolish criminal penalties for licensure violators and deregulate several occupations — interior designer, school athletics coach, auctioneer, and cosmetologist, among others. The plan would also require that future licensing regulations pertain only to those occupations having to do with health and safety (e.g., doctors in, florists out), and prohibit grandfather provisions.
I don’t know — I feel so much safer knowing the technician who runs a Flowbee across my half-inch hair to trim it back to quarter-inch was required to study for more than a year all the subtle ramifications of operating a 110V electrical device in close proximity to another person’s head.
As for the EMT, I could learn CPR by watching “Emergency!” reruns.
a home appraiser i know in texas just got viciously raped by the state of texas to where he’s afraid to report it to anyone cause they’ll just say he’s a home-appraising little whore and if he didn’t want it he shouldn’t dress like such a hotty totty home appraiser
Two interesting doctor issues that parallel this problem.
The DOT recently decided (and quite appropriately, I might add) that the medical clearance exams that commercial vehicle drivers were receiving from any doctor, chiropractor or whatever that would sign off on a form were not really being done correctly. They required that medical examiners for CDL exams complete a training program (not administered by the DOT but separately sanctioned private firms – do you begin to catch the smell of money here?) that costs about $700 and then pass a separate exam again offered by privately sanctioned testing organizations (for about $95 but at limited locations – I had to drive >300 miles round trip to take mine). The course was simply on-line forced reading of the regulations with testing after each section and a final test, which when completed allowed you to take the real test. A major fucking waste of my time and a huge chunk of cash. The test had very reasonable questions, but the round trip cost me more than the course in lost work time and travel costs. While reaching the goal, to make sure truckers and bus drivers are actually screened correctly for medical problems that can cause serious accidents on and off the road, endangering the drivers as well as the general public, is likely to be reached by this approach, simply making trained professionals take a test that they have to pass and can’t cheat on should be more than adequate for such situations. Its a major form of corruption I am sure (no I haven’t bothered to investigate, but would be surprised if there isn’t a lot of in-breeding between the testing organizations, training organizations, and current and former DOT employees). They also instituted a national database of medical exam results (passed or not, date certificate expires, etc., not the actual exam which remains in the examiner’s office). This makes it harder for drivers to shop around for different examiners if they don’t pass the first exam, which was common before. It makes it easier for DOT to look for examiners with less than scrupulous technique and decertify them. But the course requirement was Mickey Mouse and a waste of my time and money.
The Green Card for immigration requires a medical exam. The DCIS now makes an applicant to be a civil surgeon [ie someone allowed to fill out the government forms for the Green Card Medical Exam] pay about $700 (do you see a pattern here?) for the privilege of filling out a short form proving you are a citizen, graduated from medical school and are licensed to practice medicine so that they then make you swear to follow the rules and do your exams right.
Right now there are no civil surgeons for over a hundred miles from where I live – the two guys that used to do them said forget it when the $ requirement was instated and no one else wants to bother. And there are a lot of folks who speak about 50 different languages, mostly Spanish, of course, who want or need Green cards in our County. Not that it matters with our current administration’s approach to immigration.
epador
My parent’s home (built 1964) has a large (20’x40′ 9 foot deep end) pool. It used to have a nice, very fun, springboard.
It finally needed to be replaced about 15 years ago — springboards for home pools outlawed, only shorter almost fully fixed boards .. and have to be installed by someone with state certification & licensing (!!!) Indeed, even refinishing the now complaint board 10 years later could NOT be done by the regular pool guy
***where upon my dad just went and got some waterproof white spray paint & did it himself ***
– I love the smell of confused Progressives.
– I have a theory about why while all the prominent Proggie leaders and groups/media whores are condemning the Hildebeast she’s the front runner. There never was a Progressive majority. They won what they did because a shit-load of kids and women crossed over to vote against the GOP.
– *What? That’s not new, others have made that suggestion before. Alrighty then.
I lasted until 3:24. What’s my prize? I demand my prize. Come on, g-d-it, I deserve a prize.
The thing is, I don’t care. The answer is so clear, don’t move there. Don’t live there. Don’t be attracted to being there. Avoid the place. make it shrink, do not give it energy, strangle it, not think of ways to make it grow, ways to compact it more thoroughly. Shrink it!
Here’s an exercise for you (the complainer in the video) that I know you won’t do. Open Google Earth and enter Washington D.C., zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out, and try, try, TRY, to imagine the place as anything other than a face hugger upon the visage of America sucking its life force out of it, draining its strength, confusing its intellect, vexing it a million ways, killing it quickly rather than slowly. Even the people who do live there become anxious to get out of the place. It is a swamp after all, and chosen precisely for its undesirable palustrine qualities; miasma, heat, humidity, fog, mosquitos, flooding, moisture rot, rust, erosion, malaria, swamp dwellers, politicians, control freaks, hangers-on, leaches.