The bobbies patrolling the streets in the U.K. are unarmed but people still seem to respect the rule of law over there, companies can still be seized, etc.
In fact there are probably even a few Western democracies without so much as a military that still could pass laws to nationalize a business.
"Guns" are the least of your problems with government from a day-to-day point of view.
(I don't necessarily mean "you" literally, but surely we've seen enough guns-r-bad silliness online to know that it exists.)
They have the power to send in the SWAT teams and not vice versa. Try fighting USG on anything of substance and police will quickly appear, and with them guns, and then your choice is to die, to be imprisoned, or to submit.
The Buckyballs owner just had to submit. CPSC put him out of business:
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/02/magnetic-buckyballs...
This is one of the stories that made the papers. Most don't. FDA alone issued 10000+ 483s in 2011:
http://blog.fdazilla.com/2011/09/fda-will-issue-10000-483s-i...
mpyne, because you are within the federal government you don't see its bad side. Most of your work is just office work. Your agency is not about to be banned by another agency. The worst thing that can happen is that the budget is not substantially increased.
Things are a sight more dangerous for non-government businesses in the US today, at least those which are in politically unfavored categories (like Keystone XL) rather than politically favored ones (like the green energy companies).
While once in a while it so happens that political favor coincides with technological merit, as in the case of Tesla, most of the time innovation means pissing people off. Innovation and consensus are antonyms. Innovation is not democratic, committees don't make breakthroughs, and it'd be nice to not have to deal with a regulator waving a gun in one's face when your disruption disrupts their assumptions.
Or we could quit acting like starting a business in the
U.S. is really just like starting a business in a country
run by a junta
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/chryslers-holdout-len...
In a long document filed Sunday evening, Chrysler asked a
judge to approve a sale of most of its assets and some of
its liabilities for $2 billion to an entity formed by Fiat,
the United Auto Workers’ retirement trust and the United
States and Canadian governments.
But in Monday’s objection, a group of debt holders advised
by the law firm White & Case criticized the proposal as too
rushed, arguing that it was unreasonable to rule on the
merits of the sale on “15 hours’ notice.”
Moreover, they said the sale was really a reorganization
plan in disguise — one that flouts the basic rules about
which creditors get priority under the federal bankruptcy
code. The proposed sale attempts to put social goals ahead
of bankruptcy law, and should not be approved, the
objection said.
The Keystone XL extension was proposed in 2008.[6] The
application was filed in September 2008 and the National
Energy Board of Canada started hearings in September 2009.
[16] On March 11, 2010 the Canadian National Energy Board
approved the project.[2][3][17] The South Dakota Public
Utilities Commission granted a permit on February 19, 2010.
[18]
On July 21, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency said
the draft environmental impact study for Keystone XL was
inadequate and should be revised...
The Environmental Protection Agency revoked the permit for
one of the nation’s largest mountaintop-removal coal mining
projects on Thursday, saying the mine would have done
unacceptable damage to rivers, wildlife and communities in
West Virginia. It was the first time the agency had
rescinded a valid clean water permit for a coal mine...
Environmentalists welcomed Thursday’s decision. But the
mining company and politicians in West Virginia expressed
fury, saying the action was an unprecedented federal
intrusion, an economic catastrophe for the state and a
dangerous precedent for all regulated industries.
Did MIMvista ever make it into the AppStore?
Mobile MIM was available at the launch of the App Store.
The app was free and included sample patients for people to
try it out for themselves.
Why did MIMvista remove the app from the store? (or was it
forced out?)
In August of 2008, we submitted our first 510(k). ... To
be honest, this dramatically new direction for our
company, and the speed at which it occurred, left us ill-
prepared for the scope of the regulatory process that would
unfold. Within only a few weeks of submitting, we were
contacted by the FDA and told that our app could not be on
the app store (despite the fact that it was both free and
labeled as “not intended for diagnostic use”) because it
served as marketing for a device that was not cleared for
marketing. We promptly removed it.
Then, over the next few months, we discovered that our
proposed device raised more questions than we had
anticipated. In order to make their determination, the FDA
wanted more information than we had provided. The process
stalled out as we reviewed what we would have to do next.
This 510(k) was declared not substantially equivalent (NSE)
because of insufficient data.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday sued
the maker of the popular magnetic desk toy Buckyballs to
stop the sale of the product because of the risks posed to
children...
Responding to a request for comment, the company sent a
press release headlined, "CPSC: Thank you for trying to
drive a $50 million New York-based consumer product company
out of business." Buckyballs and Buckycubes are Maxfield &
Oberton's sole products; 2.5 million sets have been sold
since 2009.
I get what you're saying but I really wish people would quit bandying about the "government has guns" line. I'm one of the zillions working in the USG and I can tell you that the left hand doesn't hardly even know what the left finger is doing most of the time, let alone the right hand (and this is often by design, to avoid exactly what you're talking about).
If you want to discuss hypotheticals of gov't gone astray then that's fine but then we could also discuss those hypothetical meteors that might hit your corporate HQ (hope you've been doing your disaster recovery planning).
Or we could quit acting like starting a business in the U.S. is really just like starting a business in a country run by a junta, or that investing in civilian-run businesses that further a societal and national goal is just like establishing a command economy.