More business regulations.
That is what survey after survey around the globe shows that the world’s populations wants. Despite a relentless propaganda campaign of misinformation, fabricated data and false narratives, the public has not been fooled by the 1%. The best efforts of a well funded group of ideologues — Free Market absolutists, anti-Democracy and Randians — these pro-corporate radicals has not yet succeeded in fooling all of the world’s population all of the time.
How do we know this? A 25 country survey last year by Edelman. They asked the question: “When it comes to government regulation of business, do you think that your government regulates business too much, not enough or about the right amount?”
Most of the world thinks there is insufficient regulation across all industries. The United States, where 31% there was too much regulation. Ironic considering we originated the global financial crisis. The next closest country was Germany at 28%.
Significant pluralities or outright majorities stated that more regulatory oversight was required, with four exceptions: Singapore, UAE and the USA. Singaporeans at 21% were the lowest, but that is no surprise in a nation where spitting gum on the sidewall may lead to a caning. Only 33% of the Emirate residents said more regs were needed. In Sweden, the number is 31%. In the US, more business regulation was requested by 37% of Americans.
As we can can be seen in the chart below, most of the world has a very different perspective.
One major caveat: I would imagine the major events of the past few years probably has people thinking of disasters in specific industries: Banking, Energy Exploration and Nuclear Power. If the questions were asked about those specific industries, I believe the response for more regs would be much higher. And if the question was asked, “outside of banking, deep water oil drilling and nuclear plants” I assume we would get lower numbers.
Hence, this survey may be less about the ideology of regulation and more pragmatic about reigning in dangerous and disaster prone sectors.Too bad that concept never entered the surveyors minds . . .
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UPDATE: January 28, 2012 1:22pm
Apparently, Finance Remains Least-Trusted Industry in Annual Edelman Survey
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click for large graphic
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Source:
How the Public Sees Business Rules
FLOYD NORRIS
NYT January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/business/survey-takes-publics-pulse-on-business-regulations.html
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