{"id":2554,"date":"2008-01-31T12:16:19","date_gmt":"2008-01-31T19:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2554"},"modified":"2008-01-31T12:16:42","modified_gmt":"2008-01-31T19:16:42","slug":"who-benefits-from-occupational-licensing-laws-the-licensees-to-be-sure-to-the-detriment-of-the-consumer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2554\/who-benefits-from-occupational-licensing-laws-the-licensees-to-be-sure-to-the-detriment-of-the-consumer\/","title":{"rendered":"Who benefits from occupational licensing laws? The licensees, to be sure — to the detriment of the consumer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Coyote Blog<\/a> and Radley Balko<\/a>, the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i> brings us a nice illustration of why occupational licensing laws really exist<\/i><\/a>: Not to protect the consumer, but to protect the licensees from free-market competition<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mother and gonzo Internet retailer fears a maximum $10 million fine for selling 10,000 toys, antiques, videos, sports memorabilia, books, tools and infant clothes on eBay without an auctioneer’s license.<\/p>\n

An official from the Department of State knocked on Pletz’s white-brick ranch here north of Allentown in late December 2006 and said her Internet business, D&J Virtual Consignment, was being investigated for violating state laws.<\/p>\n

“I was dumbfounded,” said Pletz, who led the dark-suited investigator to a side patio area, where he grilled her. “I told him I would just shut down,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary Jo’s violation? Auctioneering without a license. Sound familiar? It should. It parallels the dumb stunt the Sate of Arizona tried to pull on Zillow.com<\/a>, which was accused of doing real estate appraisals without a license.<\/p>\n

But there are consumers who need protecting, right? Oh, you bet:<\/p>\n

D&J Virtual Consignment had 11,000 feedback comments on eBay and 14 were negative, Pletz said, giving her a 99.9 percent satisfaction rating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ebay is not just perfect Capitalism, it is Capitalism Perfected — everything that has always been implicit in free-market commercial transactions made utterly transparent by means of database management. If you are looking for the complete and irrefutable refutation of Das Kapital<\/i>, you’ll find it not on<\/i> but in the form of<\/i> Ebay.com.<\/p>\n

So where’s the beef?<\/p>\n

Amoros, the state spokeswoman, said investigations were a “complaint-driven” process but those complaints are confidential.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Uh huh.<\/p>\n

It is only possible to for you to defend occupational licensing laws by ignoring the palpable harm<\/i> they do to actual consumers — higher prices for lower quality goods and services. But even then, don’t get downwind of yourself. This stuff stinks.
\n<\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: real estate<\/a>, real estate marketing<\/a>, technology<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Coyote Blog and Radley Balko, the Philadelphia Inquirer brings us a nice illustration of why occupational licensing laws really exist: Not to protect the consumer, but to protect the licensees from free-market competition: Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mother and gonzo Internet retailer fears a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1521,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1521\/real-estate-licensing-laws-are-a-criminal-conspiracy-against-the-consumer-created-by-and-for-the-benefit-of-a-cartel\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":0},"title":"Real estate licensing laws are a criminal conspiracy against the consumer created by and for the benefit of a cartel","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"When I walk into a supermarket, the first thing I look at are the floors. If they aren't buffed to a blinding glow, I walk right back out. Why? Because if the manager isn't staying on top of the floor maintenance, he isn't staying on top of anything else, either.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15243,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15243\/real-estate-licensing-laws-are-a-criminal-conspiracy-against-the-consumer-created-by-and-for-the-benefit-of-a-cartel-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":1},"title":"Real estate licensing laws are a criminal conspiracy against the consumer created by and for the benefit of a cartel.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me writing in June of 2007. Someone linked to it from Twitter yesterday, and I read it for the first time in years. The argument holds up -- there has never been any attempt at rigorous refutation -- but it's even more interesting now that America has discovered\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7867,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7867\/california-proposes-to-regulate-realtors-alongside-pawn-shops-and-lenders-and-banksoh-my\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":2},"title":"California Proposes to Regulate REALTORS Alongside Pawn Shops, and Lenders, and Banks…Oh MY!","author":"Brian Brady","date":"April 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Assemblyman Pedro Nava sponsored a bill (CA-AB33) to reorganize our state's financial services' regulators to be under one umbrella, the newly created Department of Financial Services.\u00a0 The idea is to save a bunch of money for the State. Of course, CAR is going nuts.\u00a0 Amy Steele reports via ActiveRain.com: AB\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1309,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1309\/zillowcom-at-the-dawn-of-the-age-of-abundance-working-for-free-is-not-a-crime-trying-to-forbid-it-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":3},"title":"Zillow.com at the Dawn of the Age of Abundance: Working for free is not a crime, trying to forbid it is . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid (more INTx evidence). One of my favorite books was Voyage From Yesteryear by James Hogan.The plot turned on the conflict between an economy like ours, based on scarcity and hoarding, and a radically different economy based on abundance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Enduring Interest"","block_context":{"text":"Enduring Interest","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/enduring-interest\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=gregswann-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0671577980","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1490,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1490\/arizona-real-estate-licensing-fuels-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":4},"title":"Arizona real estate licensing fuels debate","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me in today's Arizona Republic (permanent link). I don't write the headlines. The implication of this one, I think, is that I am debating with myself -- always possible -- since no one else talks about these things. Arizona real estate licensing fuels debate I wrote a couple\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2710,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2710\/do-you-want-some-earth-shaking-news-in-showing-us-a-first-tentative-glimpse-of-its-new-mortgage-lending-product-zillowcom-may-in-fact-be-reinventing-and-perfecting-capitalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":5},"title":"Do you want some earth-shaking news? In showing us a first tentative glimpse of its new mortgage lending product, Zillow.com may in fact be reinventing — and perfecting — Capitalism","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to get the newspaper news out of the way first: Starting now, if you are a loan originator, you can register with Zillow.com to receive mortgage and refinancing referrals from that Seattle-based internet start-up, once it ramps up its full -- but still Top Secret -- mortgage lending\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}