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Everything Is Not OK
I went for a haircut today. Money is no object when it comes to my appearance – only the absolute finest will do. So I went to Sport Clips in the strip mall next to Target, with a $3 coupon in hand. Like many other fashion-conscious men, I frequent this establishment and don’t think I’ve ever had my hair cut by the same person twice. Like many other seemingly mundane things, this interests me. Well, most of the things that interest me actually are mundane, I suppose. But I’m fascinated by these young ladies. Who are they? Where do they come from? Where do they go? So I’ve applied for a federal grant to study attractive, rural, 30-year-old women who cut hair at gimmicky chain barber shops.
Well, actually, no – I just talk to them. And I learn a lot.
Kaitlyn (not her real name) just moved here from Georgia. Her husband is an auto mechanic. “He can fix anything with four wheels! Well, except my car – it runs like crap!” She went on at some length about how good he was at fixing things. His plan was to start his own shop once they moved here. They moved into a double-wide trailer that had a nice pole barn out back, which he planned to outfit with electric and a high-end air compressor, maybe even a grease pit, and start his own business.
He spent almost a year working on permits, licenses, inspections, and so on. He spoke to people from the county, city, state, feds, and the EPA. He talked to attorneys, accountants, and consultants to help wade through all the red tape. After about a year, he realized that the start-up costs were more than he was willing to gamble on the eventual success of a business that did not yet exist, so he got a job with the city, maintaining their trucks and mowing equipment. It doesn’t pay very well, but it has good benefits. It’s not a bad job, she says. Nothing to complain about. Everything is ok.
Kaitlyn did a great job on my hair, was very pleasant and personable, and is clearly very intelligent. She said that a few miles from their house, a barber recently retired. She considered buying his shop. She’s always dreamed of owning her own business. She said that’s the whole reason she went to cosmetology school. I said that sounded great – the shop is already set up, it has a large group of established customers, and she could expand from there.
She said that she spent several months looking into it, but she would need permits, licenses, inspections, and so on. I pointed out that it has been a barber’s shop for years, so the inspections, permits, and so on would already be done. She said that it would be a new business, and she would have to pay for all that to be done over again. She spoke with attorneys, accountants, and consultants to help wade through all the red tape – some of the same individuals that her husband had just consulted. She soon realized that the start-up costs were more than she was willing to gamble, so she got a job with a chain. The pay is not very good, and the benefits are lousy. One reason her husband took a government job was for the health insurance for their family. But she doesn’t mind working for Sport Clips – it’s a decent job, she says. Nothing to complain about. Everything is ok.
So how does this story end?
Well, in my view, it’s already ended. This young couple from a modest background has all the potential in the world. They’re both ambitious, intelligent, and very good at a valuable skill. They’re devoted to their family, their dreams, and each other. They dream of better things and are willing to gamble, willing to work hard today for a better tomorrow, and willing to take on the additional responsibilities that come with owning a business. They’re savvy enough with modern government to hire attorneys and consultants to help with the red tape.
And even they can’t open a new business, to do something they already know how to do.
And 30 years from now, nothing will have happened.
My Uncle Fred (Frederic Bastiat) described this as the seen versus the unseen. Progressives win elections because the benefits they provide are immediate and obvious. They give people free money with taxpayer dollars, or build highways with taxpayer dollars, or start new general assistance programs with taxpayer dollars. They’re working for you, and anyone with eyes can see it. The benefits provided by progressives are seen.
But the damage they cause is mostly unseen. In 30 years, Kaitlyn and her husband could have retired to a very nice community on the Gulf Coast and played golf for the rest of their lives. But they won’t. She’ll still be cutting hair for $12 an hour plus tips, and he’ll still be fixing lawn mowers for the city. Just like they are now.
They didn’t lose a fortune, because they never had the opportunity to earn one. Nothing happened. There they sit. And there they’ll stay.
Progressives may think they’re utopians who dream of a better tomorrow. But, in reality, they are the robotic defenders of the status quo. Everything stays the same because nothing happens. And when things don’t happen, those things don’t make the evening news. They didn’t happen at all, so there’s nothing to complain about. Everything is basically ok. And that’s the way it will stay.
Until it doesn’t.
Change is scary. You never know what might happen. It might be good. It might be bad. You roll the dice like this young couple tried to do. Twice.
Or you don’t. Like progressives do, every day.
I wonder if Kaitlyn views progressives as nice people who are trying to help her. Or if she views them as well-meaning fools, as I do when I’m trying to be charitable.
But in bed late at night, I wonder if she ever hates them for destroying her life and the lives of her children.
Probably not. Because nothing really happened. And nothing ever will.
There’s nothing to complain about.
Everything is ok.
I left her a $10 tip for a $15 haircut, and I walked out. I looked good – it really was a sharp haircut. But I felt like I wanted to puke.
Everything is not ok.
Published in General
Well, Texas was controlled by Democrats since the War Between the States until George Bush was governor. We’re still fixing things.
Well, @drbastiat has shown the effect of “insidious cost of regulations” to specific real people. It’s not an abstract concept, or a generalized effect of “X number of people did not open a business because of the burdens of excessive regulations.” It’s two people whom we can actually picture in our minds.
The Left has done this very effectively for decades. When the Left talks about the wonders about a government program, they rarely talk about numbers of people needing help; they put forward a story about a specific person or family.
This seems to be a very effective technique that we have not used very much.
When I was teaching I had a substitute come in one day for my aide. He was an African-American, retired Airforce NCO. He had been substituting for about year really wanting to get a permanent position. What we discussed with the essential incompetence of most of the teachers he had worked with in the time he had been subbing. Having taught for more 20 years at that point it wasn’t hard for me to relate to what he was saying. For both of us the major problem with the teaching profession was that the vast majority of teachers went through the public school system, then college, and then were hired as teachers without any real world experience. I had served as an officer in the Navy before I got into teaching, so I could bring something of a real world experience to my profession. My education had included a BA and an MA, neither in the field of education. I had joined a core of recruits in New York City as part of what was called The Intensive Teacher Training Program. This program gave non-Education majors 13 credits of education courses over a summer and then dumped them into the worst schools in the district. What came out of that program were some of the best teachers I have ever known. The reason being that they came from a variety of backgrounds, in my case, Marine Science, in others law school, or other real disciplines.
After two years in the NYC school system I left to move to Seattle. When I got to Seattle the then head of Special Education looked at what I had done for two years and my recommendations, and hired me on the spot. I taught in Seattle for the next 17 years, took fives year off to try my hand at being a stock broker (a position I discovered required an ethical lobotomy), and then returned to teaching. Back when I started in Seattle I was required to attend classes at the University of Washington School of Education in order to fulfill the requirements of a teaching license. Of the 30 some hours of education classes I took there wasn’t one class that had any relevance to what I was actually doing everyday in my classroom. Had I not had a solid background in sciences, social studies, the arts, literature, et al. that I received while in undergraduate school I would likely be useless in a classroom, as are the majority of those who graduate with degrees in Education.
I had gone to private schools as a child and had some wonderful teachers. The methods they used to teach me to read and write and do math were the method which made me successful in my own classrooms. The disciplinary procedures I use in my classrooms were also learned in my own growing up years. One basic was maintaining my personal dignity. That is never taught in schools of education.
Just to finish: the requirements to get licenses to teach, to cut hair, to massage, to do just about anything does little or nothing to insure the competence of the people performing those functions. If anything it keeps a lot of very competent people from getting jobs. The license often protects the incompetent from having to compete with more competent people. I am a strong believer in allowing the market to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
Oh God yes. This is so, so true.
Why? Because I favor federalism. Giving the feds monopoly power over this issue gives the feds the power to engage in crony capitalism with it. They may not at first, but they will.
The resulting boon in business and personal investing would keep accountants and financial advisers employed for ages. As for tax lawyers? Well, they can handle all the bankruptcy cases generated by the churn in the market as more businesses compete and fail.
But at least the slaves usually got fed and boarded. The upper class has even managed to rid themselves of that responsibility.
Ever notice how the upper class is worried about the income inequality. Took me a while to figure out what they are talking about since most upper class I know like to pay their illegals the least amount of money possible for the job. If they were really concerned about the worker class income then you would think they would be willing to pay more. Then it occurred to me. There were not really worried about the lower class wages. They were worried about a slave revolt. Or more precisely when the slaves revolt how the masters fare.
Sometimes it can get ridiculous, this happened about eight years ago. These were primarily minority barbers, this at the height of the recession, the only thing that saved the sheriff is that he is black.
“In two sweeps on Aug. 21 and Sept. 17, and a smaller October operation, 35 people were arrested on a misdemeanor charge of “barbering without an active license,” records show. Demings said if his agency could conduct the operations over again, deputies would issue orders to appear in court, akin to traffic citations, rather than take people to jail for cutting hair.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are spot on with your message. How sad that so many of us just accept the status quo and figure, “well, it is just the way things are”.
That’s why the founding fathers were concerned about income inequality, though they didn’t use that exact term. They knew that a Republic like ours could not survive if there wasn’t at least a rough equality. Those founders were smart people.
While waiting for one of the med specialists I see, two guys in their mid to late 70’s were discussing how much life in the USA has changed. One mentioned that back in the 1930’s thru the early 1960’s, farmers in Illinois might have a part time job and additionally work a mere 160 acres. From those endeavors, they owned a house, often bought with cash or else built by their own labor. They paid cash for a new car every three or four years. They had vacations in the winter. They had retirement monies put aside, and since college was affordable, their kids got through the years of higher education with little in the way of student debt.
Now a farmer needs a bare minimum of 640 acres. He or she has a mortgage on their home. A car loan for their car. Farm equipment is outrageous in price, although of course the modern machinery is magnificent in terms of what it can do. But it is owned by the bank until right before it needs to be replaced.
The vacations are managed only by being put on a credit card. So people often forego them. The young adults get out of college with massive student debt. We think of the good old days as being good for a reason beyond mere nostalgia.
Protecting the public is always the justification and protecting the incumbent trade is always the result. It’s the natural evolution of the bureaucracy. A law is passed to protect people from the hazards of barbering (excessive blood letting) and the next thing we know we are deciding who can perform cornrow braids and who can pluck eyebrows! To what end? Ambitious regulators need to broaden constituencies to garner more fees and grow their departments. Every complaint about a nicked ear or a bad haircut requires an investigation. The Public! Oh, the Public!
Duh. The public will take care of itself; it will avoid that barber next time. Friends will see the bad haircut and inquire. The barber will change or starve. Problem solved.
I’m surprised, after Willard, that the feds aren’t involved. Aren’t there still folks out there who cut their own hair or have their spouse do it? My wife, now a blonde, owes that fact to my hairdressing skills. I’m quite good, in fact, and I’m much cheaper than a licensed cosmetologist. I’m waiting for the state or the feds to arrest or fine me, as according to Willard, they have every right to do so.
Come and get me!
My wife Marie has cut my hair for 55 years. She’s not very good at it, but then I haven’t particularly cared much either—though I still say, as she lets me see myself in the mirror, “Nice job, Honey. Looks great.”
We can put them on the “A” Ark, with assurances that everyone else will be on the B and C arks that are soon to follow.
It’s not left v right at the local level and often at the state level. I live in a decidedly right wing Dallas suburb and all sorts of “good government” policies are foisted upon the citizenry by our technically non-partisan officials. People who regularly support and vote for conservative Republicans for state and national office. We’ve had no smoking in restaurants for 10 years, but last year our council voted to ban vaping and smoking within 25 feet of any business entrance. That’s the kind of good government policy you get from conservatives at the city level. No doubt they are strong supporters of making sure barbers have a thousand hours of training.
When I was a kid my father gave us our haircuts. He did a good job, though as I got older I didn’t care for the style or frequency. On very special occasions I got a barber shop haircut back then. Maybe 2-3 times that I can remember. To this day I am not talkative in the barber chair, because Dad told us to keep still and not talk while he was cutting, though in recent years I have started to get over it.
What I didn’t know was that Dad cut my mother’s hair, too. After our parents died, my sister told me about it. Mom was fussy about how it was done, and when in old age Dad got macular degeneration and couldn’t do it any more, Mom had to go to a hairdresser. It was hard for my sister to find one that Mom liked (which is something I did know about) because she thought nobody did it as well as her husband had done.
These days I have no reason to be fussy about how my hair is cut. I’m pretty sure my wife could do it just fine, as all I want is a buzz cut of such hair as there is, using the No. 1.5 attachment. But I haven’t been able to get her to do it. Maybe if I told her more about the babes at the barbershop she could get interested.
When I was working at my final job as an engineer, the company I was working at for only a year decided to shut down and move production to Mexico. One of my colleagues, like me, was disheartened by the future of manufacturing in the US and whereas I decided to go to law school, he was interested in becoming a teacher.
After doing some research on the matter, he began by trying to be a substitute teacher. He related to me that they looked at his academic career and gave him points for having a BS but then he didn’t get any “science” points for any of his engineering classes. They told him that engineering didn’t involve science. But then they found that he could indeed teach a science class because in his freshman year, prior to switching to engineering, he took a basic geography class, essentially “rocks for jocks” as we used to call it. The powers that be that control substitute teachers were excited and told him that this qualified him to teach science because it was in the science department of his university.
Now of course, engineering requires very intense science and math and physics, but these numbskulls had no idea what an engineer was and wouldn’t give him any science credit for fluid dynamics, mechanics, etc.
The most important reform our nation can make is to abolish the public school system.
My dad used to cut our hair and being a brat I used to complain heavily about it. One day after my complaining he announced he would never cut my hair again, and he didn’t. I was shocked and actually disappointed.
I still hate getting haircuts, but I like short hair. If I could find a way to cut my own hair and mount and balance my own tires, I would be the happiest man alive.
And you still pray that she never reads Ricochet.
Do not know if it has been pointed out yet, but this OP by Dr Bastiat has been chosen for one of Powerlineblog’s editors picks:
Picks
Now Doug, you do remember the great cornrow die off back in the late 1970’s when thousands of young women did not get enough circulation to their grey matter and were taking dirt naps almost immediately after having their hair braided. It was a major tragedy, wasn’t it? The epidemic also did in the career of Bo Derek. (Which might not have been so tragic.)
When I lived in a rural area, the local assessor happened to find out that I was starting a very small business and required that I pay about $100 a year in business taxes for my computer, copying machine, and fax machine.
When I moved to the big city years ago, the local assessor said to forget about it. I asked the local big city government if I needed a business license. They said no.
So basically I didn’t have to do anything.
(I’ve been told that there actually was a hair stylist who used one of the rooms of my place. The cats who adopted by location ended getting to come inside eventually and got to have that room, so that one of them won’t vomit on the carpet.)
I can’t help you with the former, but I can point you to a solution to the latter:
Mount and Balance.
(-:
In some states you need to have a certification to be an interior decorator. Because a government agent knows better than the public if someone is competent to choose drapes?
“Step aside, sir, this man is licensed to color-coordinate.”
“By the power vested in me by the State of Florida, I declare . . . Taupe?”
When I was younger, I used what I call the leftover method of cutting my hair. I’d bend over, so that my head was upside down, grab my hair in a fist, and cut off what was leftover. It wasn’t short, but it worked OK. Even had a sort of layered look.
Like @marcin, I have been surprised by the response to this post. I get a haircut, jot down a few thoughts on my conversation with the barber, and in less than 24 hours it’s over 100 likes and it just hit Powerline. If I had any idea this would happen, I would have taken a bit more time, chosen some of my words more carefully, and tried to more fully form my point.
I’m not sure why this hit a nerve, but I’ll offer a guess: The unseen costs of well-meaning government programs are often ignored. Of course they’re ignored – it’s easy to ignore things you can’t see. But when you catch a glimpse of the destruction they cause, it’s horrifying.
And this destruction has a greater effect on those less fortunate – multi-state corporations have legal departments, but Kaitlyn does not. So the government selects winners and losers based not on competence, convenience to customers, cost, or any other relevant measure. No, the government chooses winners and losers based on who is able to pay the most tribute to government and its allies. Which is awfully close to third world style corruption.
But it all seems so reasonable and nice.
This is why I describe myself as a bleeding heart conservative. I hate progressivism and big government, because it’s just brutal, especially to those who can’t defend themselves.
You don’t need Joseph Stalin to demostrate how heartless big government can be.
It’s easy. Anyone can do it.
It really isn’t just the government… it’s lack of real knowledge. Business is really scary and it takes an ability to weather uncertainty. And to pick yourself up and do it again when you make mistakes.
If this is truly a capitalist society we really should teach capitalism in schools. Because it would be so much easier to do it if you knew that failure is part of success. That the long game is scary and uncertain. And that that is how it is supposed to be.
Plus, financial planning, bookkeeping etc.
Maybe if we taught Capitalism… not business because no one wants to take that:) but how to actually run one… over and over again… then the left would understand how regulation messes it all up.
For most people a full year of Capitalism in high school would be so much more valuable than Calculus. And it would make people trust their own instincts and take the risks.
How do determine costs and setting prices, how to target the right customers with marketing… how to give good service… those that succeed have a natural bend, but most people could do well if they just understood the whole thing.
I disagree. Without the government regulations that they failed to overcome, they would both have opened their own shops.
Now, to your point, they may have failed. Hard to say.
But thanks to government, we’ll never know.
It took me about two years in the early 80’s to find out that I was not a businessman.