Subsidiarity in sand mining regulations

 Centralization, Crazy patchwork of state and local regulations  No Responses »
Dec 032013
 

Uh, oh.  Another crazy patchwork of state and local regulations is under attack.  (The Reticulator is almost always in favor of these crazy patchworks on anti-monopoly grounds.)

In Trempealeau County, Wis., where a number of new sand mines have opened, officials recently imposed a one-year ban on issuing new permits.

“We were looking at hundreds of permits being taken out, dozens of proposed mines that could become operational within a year,” said Sally Miller, a member of the county’s board of supervisors. “I didn’t want us to be 20 years from now saying we wish we had known.”

Even so, some state lawmakers worry a much needed job-creating sector is under threat, and hope to shift regulatory control to the state.

via In Fracking, Sand Is the New Gold – WSJ.com.

Banks required to guard against cyberattack. ObamaCare is not.

 Health care reform, Regulation  No Responses »
Dec 032013
 

To start a bank, you need to spell out how you’re going to guard against cyberattack. To take over the country’s medical care system, you do not.  That’s the advantage of doing things with an unregulated monopoly.

To convince regulators of their viability, the backers behind the Bird-in-Hand group raised about $17 million from investors. Brent Peters, chief executive of the Bank of Bird-in-Hand, estimated the group spent about $800,000 in preparing its application for a new charter, including consulting and legal fees, rent on a temporary office during the roughly seven-month application process and the salaries of top managers, four of whom were on the payroll one month before the bank won FDIC approval.

In its application, the bank had to lay out internal policies and procedures in detail and specify the systems in place to, for example, guard against cyberattacks.

“You are talking perhaps anywhere from 8 to 16 inches of paper,” the bank’s attorney, Nick Bybel, said of the application.

Tally of U.S. Banks Sinks to Record Low – WSJ.com.