I would seriously like to start my own restaurant. However, I checked into the red tape involved in starting one in conservative ol' Lubbock, Texas and quailed. Frankly, I'm amazed anybody would undertake the massive effort and expense to do so, particularly in a high-risk venture.

The study's based on OECD data and doesn't limit the cost of regulation to incremental cost.

For example, if all tax regulations were instantly repealed and a simple, flat tax were implemented, there'd still be an enormous cost of preparing tax returns. It'd be less, but still enormous.

Likewise, if the alternative to federal regulations about flammability of children's sleepwear is to have voluntary compliance, the incremental cost isn't that great. And if the alternative instead is to have kids' sleepwear that goes up in flames . . . well, you catch my drift.

Tough luck, kids. You should have filed a notarized Form 672 with the Department of Revenue with the required $900 application fee thirty days before applying for a C91 permit ten days after receiving an approved temporary zoning permit from the Department of Urban Development not valid for more than 15 days after receiving an approval letter from the President of the County Land Appropriations Committee requiring 250 signatures from members of local community not 20 days after having the intention to set up that lemonade stand.

Lesson learned.

I think these regulations that strangle small businesses may be the most destructive of all government regulations (and the most potentially corrupt), but when I hear these whines about shutting down kids lemonade stands I immediately smell conservative troll bait.

It may be that the cases I've heard of are exceptions, but the ones I've seen posted on the Drudge Report that are called "kids lemonade stands", when you read the story and look at the details, aren't like anything I would consider a kids lemonade stand. i.e., kids pick some lemons in their backyard, make a hand painted sign, and sell it to neighbors at 50 cents a glass. These have been cases where kids are reselling products in areas where commercial street vendors usually operate illegally.

Again, what I've read may be exceptions, but every time someone uses "think of the kids!!!111!!!" to make a political argument, I immediately smell someone trying to feed me a "satan" sandwich.

I love a good lemonade stand. But what's with kids these days using the revenues to give to the SPCA or some other charity? Since when did it become inappropriate to sweat out an afternoon selling drinks (or, contraband as they apparently are now known) by the corner just to get some grab for yourself that you could blow on baseball cards or a comic book?

I work for a private entity that has a fair amount of dealings with federal, state and local regulatory agencies. The governmental agencies are, in my opinion, often ridiculous in their positions. Furthermore, I think that it is not at all unusual for them to use the might of the government to force people and businesses to do things that they're not even required to do under law simply by application of the 500 pound gorilla principle.

That said, the idea that all businesses would turn out safe, high-quality products if just left alone seems pretty naive. I can think of the relatively recent case where the cemetary was burying caskets one on top of another and (I think) had other bodies who simply hadn't been buried properly. Also, the peanut-butter salmonella scare of a couple years ago, which appeared to be based on real problems.

More recently, a restaurant in the mall in which my office is posted an "F" on its health inspection. I had fortunately stopped eating there several years ago because the service was terrible. Nevertheless, it had stayed in business for years. It went out of business quickly after a second report was posted showing a "D."

Small businesses, in particular it seems to me, may be more vulnerable to the tendency to cut corners, and the reasons may run the range from a lack of revenue to poor management to bad legal or business advice. The problem with government agencies is that they take a one-size-fits-all approach to every issue, and they have no appreciation whatsoever for the costs imposed by their actions. Over-regulation is clearly a problem (although not the only part of the regulation problem) but doing away with governmental regulation is probably not the answer either.

Try construction:
External Link 

And I was only picking on a teeny-tiny minuscule piece of the pie you need to build anything.

Another possibility would be for small businesses to provide products or services that are sufficiently in demand relative to supply, so that the cost of regulation can be profitably included in the product price. Lemonade stands don't do that. But creating and running such a business requires management talent above the level of school kids. Anyone out there? No whiners.

Or you could look at it as a way the city fathers (and others?) could make a quick buck with a captive audience that they normally would not have.