I have a hard time taking purely anecdotal articles seriously. As entertainment, they're fine, but...in theory, the CNN Money header implies more serious financial journalism. In an article like this, though, I'm not entirely surprised to see "regulations" painted as this monolithic entity of evil, rather than going into complexities associated with different industries and levels of government.
The anecdotes chosen didn't seem all that sympathetic, either (except for the ones at the beginning, which was probably deliberate). Then, I'm going to be biased against small businesses that profit off of cars and meat. (Mail order barbecue? Mail order barbecue complaining about having to take a food handling class? That's...really scary. Why would people want this sort of thing?)
See, if they said they were certified from source X but now had to go through certification again from source Y, even though they already did X, then I would be sympathetic. (That sort of thing happens too and is a valid complaint.)
On the other hand, if handling my food in a sanitary way is "challenging," then I'm not so sympathetic, especially if you are going to ship it rather than serve it immediately.
A lot of these certifications are because bad things happen if you make a mistake, and I don't want to be hurt by someone else's mistake. I'd rather try to prevent it than file a lawsuit after the fact.
This article pisses me off. It stinks of lazy journalism and there's practically no effective analysis on what those regulations are in place for. The food safety stuff--what the flock? That's a cost of doing business. citabria has taken some of those courses--they're important and not that fraking expensive.
Sigh. Data is not the plural of anecdote.
[As for not parking cars for sale on personal property? That's to keep the relevant locale from looking like a garage sale all the time. I'm betting that's a local regulation. My town has one that was, among other things, aimed at one used car dealer parking his cars on his personal property instead of on his commercial lot. (The former had more "visibility", he claimed, and would lead to more drive-by business.) "Blight" regulations are now starting to get enacted around here and the cries of "That's un-American!" are getting cacophonous.]
Yep. Read it. Parsed it as "Wah wah, our business model is to treat customers, vendors, and/or employees like crap and you're preventing us so it's your fault we're not making as much money as we want to.". Cue world's smallest violin, etc
( ... )
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The anecdotes chosen didn't seem all that sympathetic, either (except for the ones at the beginning, which was probably deliberate). Then, I'm going to be biased against small businesses that profit off of cars and meat. (Mail order barbecue? Mail order barbecue complaining about having to take a food handling class? That's...really scary. Why would people want this sort of thing?)
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On the other hand, if handling my food in a sanitary way is "challenging," then I'm not so sympathetic, especially if you are going to ship it rather than serve it immediately.
A lot of these certifications are because bad things happen if you make a mistake, and I don't want to be hurt by someone else's mistake. I'd rather try to prevent it than file a lawsuit after the fact.
Reply
Sigh. Data is not the plural of anecdote.
[As for not parking cars for sale on personal property? That's to keep the relevant locale from looking like a garage sale all the time. I'm betting that's a local regulation. My town has one that was, among other things, aimed at one used car dealer parking his cars on his personal property instead of on his commercial lot. (The former had more "visibility", he claimed, and would lead to more drive-by business.) "Blight" regulations are now starting to get enacted around here and the cries of "That's un-American!" are getting cacophonous.]
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