For years, many craft brewers in Florida have been directly working with the stores that sell their products. But now Florida lawmakers are entertaining a bill that will make such direct dealings illegal, forcing craft brewers to instead use state-licensed distributors as middlemen.
The proliferation of the food truck industry has created numerous opportunities for entrepreneurial-minded Americans to start their own business. It is hard enough to succeed in the mobile cuisine business given how fiercely competitive the restaurant industry is. But government regulations are making it even harder for food truck entrepreneurs to stay afloat.
Government regulations regularly treat honest businessmen as guilty until proven innocent by requiring that they get government permission to open a business, even one as familiar as a fast food restaurant.
Government regulations criminalize all kinds of rational, productive, and honest business activity. As bad as this is, the non-objective nature of the regulatory state and the wide powers its enforcers wield can enable regulators to get away with extorting large sums from honest producers even when there is no clear wrongdoing according to their own rules.
I’ve blogged before on how the Jones Act of 1920 forbids maritime shippers from carrying cargo from one U.S. port to another unless the ship is, in essence, owned and run by Americans. This law is an obvious attempt to insulate some American businessmen from competition.
In my recent op-ed, I discuss how the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has distorted labor relationships in unionized industries by forcing employers and employees to deal with unions.
The Department of Energy recently announced new energy efficiency regulations for commercial refrigerators, alleging the move would save American businesses billions of dollars.
