[at-l] Regulation (was My Weekend)

[bullard@northnet.org (James Bullard)]

At 01:52 PM 3/5/01 -0500, Hal Wright wrote:
>How does this relate to the trail? I think Rand was generally against
>government ownership of land except for certain very narrow purposes. So I
>don't think the trail would exist at all under her system, although
>interestingly, here in PA we acquired much of our public trail land after it
>had been lumbered, generally used up, and discarded by industry.

"...used up and discarded..." This reminds me of something I read about the 
history of the Adirondacks before it had "Forever Wild" status in the NYS 
Constitution. It seems that timber companies were in the habit of buying 
huge tracks and cutting off all the trees of whatever type they had a 
market for at the moment, then letting the State take the land for taxes. 
When the market changed to another type of timber they'd buy it back from 
the State (cheap, of course) strip it of that type of timber and let it go 
back to the State for taxes again.

I agree Hal, that if business behaved properly, government regulation 
wouldn't be needed. I have spent 26+ years in the NYS Dept of Labor and 
have friends in other bureaucracies. In all that time I have never seen any 
evidence to suggest that the majority of businesses today are any more 
altruistic or less greedy than they were in the era that spawned all of the 
regulation we have today.

Saunterer