{"id":2877,"date":"2008-04-01T20:31:07","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T03:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2877"},"modified":"2008-04-01T20:31:09","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T03:31:09","slug":"state-mandated-licensing-of-interior-designers-is-our-only-possible-protection-from-life-threatening-color-clashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2877\/state-mandated-licensing-of-interior-designers-is-our-only-possible-protection-from-life-threatening-color-clashes\/","title":{"rendered":"State-mandated licensing of interior designers is our only possible protection from life-threatening color clashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Coyote Blog<\/a>, Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice<\/a> argues against occupational licensing for interior designers in the Wall Street Journal:<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine you were a state legislator and some folks asked you to pass a law making it a crime to give advice about paint colors and throw pillows without a license. And imagine they told you that the only people qualified to place large pieces of furniture in a room are those who have gotten a college degree in interior design, completed a two-year apprenticeship, and passed a national licensing exam. And by the way, it is criminally misleading for people who practice interior design to use that term without government permission.<\/p>\n

You might stare at them incredulously for a moment, then look down at your calendar and say, “Oh, I get it — April Fool!” Right? Wrong.<\/p>\n

These folks represent the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), an industry group whose members have waged a 30-year, multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to legislate their competitors out of business. And those absurd restrictions on advice about paint selection, throw pillows and furniture placement represent the actual fruits of lobbying in places like Alabama, Nevada and Illinois, where ASID and its local affiliates have peddled their snake-oil mantra that “Every decision an interior designer makes affects life safety and quality of life.”<\/p>\n

Legislative analysis by a half-dozen states that rebuffed ASID’s attempts to cartelize interior design — including Colorado, Washington and South Carolina — has failed to support ASID’s claim that the location of your couch or the color of your bedroom walls is literally a matter of life and death. As the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies put it, there is “no evidence of physical or financial harm being caused to . . . consumers by the unregulated practice of interior designers.”<\/p>\n

Lacking any factual support for its sweeping public welfare claims, ASID and its supporters often resort to fear-mongering.[…]<\/p>\n

If there were any credible evidence that unregulated interior design presents a genuine risk to consumers, ASID would certainly have found it by now. They have had plenty of time (more than three decades), resources (dues for Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Coyote Blog, Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice argues against occupational licensing for interior designers in the Wall Street Journal: Imagine you were a state legislator and some folks asked you to pass a law making it a crime to give advice about paint colors and throw pillows without a license. And imagine […]<\/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":[4,24,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","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":2877,"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":2877,"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":1518,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1518\/consumer-is-the-loser-with-real-estate-licensing-broker-argues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2877,"position":2},"title":"Consumer is the loser with real estate licensing, broker argues","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me in today's Arizona Republic (permanent link): \u00a0Consumer is the loser with real estate licensing, broker argues We've been talking about real estate licensing laws, admittedly an exercise in futility. Whatever arguments I might make for repeal, it remains that the Arizona Department of Real Estate is not\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":1530,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1530\/catching-a-sniff-of-the-stench-from-tennessee-why-being-right-about-the-real-estate-licensing-laws-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":2877,"position":3},"title":"Catching a sniff of the stench from Tennessee: Why being right about the real estate licensing laws matters","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Well. It is beyond all doubt that readers here are thrilled to the core to cogitate on the implications of real estate licensing laws and their hypothetical repeal. So far the silence has been deafening, with nothing but a host of fallacious arguments, some charming insults and something new under\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":1490,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1490\/arizona-real-estate-licensing-fuels-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":2877,"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":1546,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1546\/questions-answer-why-real-estate-license-laws-should-be-repealed\/","url_meta":{"origin":2877,"position":5},"title":"Questions answer why real estate license laws should be repealed","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me in today's Arizona Republic (permanent link). This is familiar turf to readers here, but I'm wondering if consumers might invest more effort in contemplating the issue. \u00a0Questions answer why real estate license laws should be repealed The idea of repealing real estate licensing laws continues to percolate\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","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=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}