Self Regulation and the Price at the Pump

Last night, 60 Minutes did a story on Rick Berman, corporate attack man for rich corporations. He loves to attack labor unions and regulatory agencies. His answer to the world's problems is industry "self regulation." Keep him in mind when you pass the next gas station. Gas prices are self regulating. Oil companies have self regulated a strangle hold on the economy and created world record profits for themselves.

National Geographic podcasts has a current article on New England cod fisheries called "The End of the Line, "Newfoundland cod fed the world for centuries. By the 1990's, industrial fishing had destroyed the stocks." They are also featuring an article on world fisheries which is headed for the same consequences. They are "self-regulating." Look around at the relics of the fishing industry in Monterrey, California for another view of a a self regulating industry. Government regulation may not work that well, but it is a vast improvement over self regulation.

Self regulating industries are often the first to request government help when things go wrong for them.

Here along the Oregon coast, we also have a fishing industry which complains like a stuck hog every time a government regulation threatens to cost them short term money. They apparently haven't learned from their Atlantic ocean brothers. One thing that has saved many a boat captain is the ability to convert to whale watching. Had we left the whaling industry to regulate itself, there would be no whales to watch.