Who is IJ?

Sorry, Institute for Justice - left that off from the bottom initially. It's up there now.

According to what I've read, Mexico doesn't go in for this kind of regulatory nonsense. So what I don't understand is, why are they so much poorer than we are? Everything I believe about economics says that our peasants should be flocking South looking for work, instead of the other way around.

@Rex - Corruption. Mexico is far more corrupt than we are. Corruption kills free enterprise even faster than enforced anti-competition rules.

>>The state board and the Louisiana Funeral Directors Association--the profession's lobbyist--say the law is designed to protect consumers. But that's what established businesses always say about absurd regulations they demand.

The rip-off tricks in the US funeral trade produced one of the funniest non fiction books ever written - still relevant almost fifty years later.

Seriously, it's a scathingly glorious read - by one of the infamous British Mitford sisters.(She also produced an updated version - published in 1998, two years after she died).

From Amazon:"Before the turn of the century, the American funeral was simple "to the point of starkness," says Jessica Mitford, the acclaimed muckraking journalist who published this investigation of the country's funeral business in 1963."

http://www.amazon.com/American-Way-Death-Jessica-Mitford/dp/156849159X

The current administration has it's foot on the throat of businesses-threatening to increase taxes on anyone who makes over $250,000- and they wonder why businesses aren't hiring people.

Since most of The Obama administration and Obama himself have never run a private business or worked for one, I will inform them at no charge how this works.

If I have a million dollar business and I pay $200,000 to our wise and benevolent government there is $200,000 that I could use for salaries or equipment. Equipment I buy would put other people to work by producing. Now I've adjusted to the normal $200,000 tax and they say we want to tax you more, we don't know how much. We are going to force you to pay for health insurance for your employees and maybe we will put a carbon energy tax on you.
If I'm a business I say I might have $100,000 or more in new taxes every year on top of my $200,000. I'm unsure. Since I'm unsure what awaits me I'm going to hunker down and save money and not risk expanding at this point because there are too many unknowns.
-If you want to see economic growth implement the fair tax.

David I am surprised noone on any of the licensing boards or anyone else has demanded you hire their wife/nephew/other person to a paid job they should never to be expected to show up to. I have 3 friends in Nashville who run thier own business. One cleanes apartment buildings and similar structures, another is a freelance programmer who works with a few people and another is an accountant. Well the 3rd never got to hire anyone for his own firm because of the hassle he was put through. They all had people ask
Them for jobs for family member before they would be able to get going. There is a word for what these people tried.. Well the first 2 spent loads of cash wriggling around the system and finally got going. The third is still working on his own. He would like to manage his own firm but says it isn't worth the BS he would have to go through.

Unfortunate really. He is a good guy and would no doubt be a fair employer.

I don't know what Rex Little has been reading but Mexico ranks below the US in every index of economic freedom (http://www.heritage.org/index ) except fiscial (overall taxation) and government spending. On corruption, property rights and labor it ranks way below. Also Mexico's economic freedom has improved over the past decade whereas the US has deteriorated.

Mexico is trying to come up from the bottom whereas the US is falling from the heights. There is a lesson there.

I've seen what Rex is saying about Mexico. Down there, it doesn't take half a lifetime to become a lawyer or a doctor. It doesn't take years to get a funeral director or a cosmetologist license. I've met many Mexicans that in Mexico had been lawyers or midwifes, yet up here they take manual labor jobs because they pay decent and are not judged because they don't have a fancy degree.

A lot of Mexico's problems are caused by America and our 'War on Drugs'. We encourage violence by making it a crime to sell substances that have been around since before the white man stepped on this continent. We also keep drug prices high, worth the extra murder and mayhem, so they can see gigantic profits. And it's those highly paid drug king pings that are keeping drugs illegals. Not to mention that the public doesn't generally see the violence that is rampant in Mexico.

It's not just in America too. It's the government. Recently one of my favourite places (In South Korea) to hang out and sort of coffee shop/bar/hookah lounge has been forced to stop selling Shisha(flavored tobacco) BECAUSE their was a convenience store selling cigarettes was three meters too close to his place. In the process he has lost almost all of his business because every time somebody comes in he has to tell them sorry no shisha and at the most people leave. This lounge did not sell cigs just the shisha. The convenience store has no problems with the Shisha lounge.

How this got found out of a store being too close to another place I do not know. I think it was just some busy body complained (it is foreign owned and those people are always smoking DRUGS), government official came in found something to nitpick about and bam business lost. Also he will have to lay off his couple of Uni student workers.

Yep Regulations are their to protect us!

I caught most of the casket one on the Stossel show. Hated how the funeral people kept going bac to, bu thats what the law says as their defense for the law. But my question would be, (not sure if was asked in the show) does your group support this law and did they lobby to get it put on the books.