Peanut Butter Regulations

by Rusty Rustbelt

PEANUT BUTTER REGULATIONS

Watching people spread peanut butter is interesting.

I am a semi-neurotic peanut butter spreader, I try to cover most of the bread and try to get the thickness close to even, but I am not a perfectionist-neurotic spreader. There are also slap-and-eat messy spreaders.

Having dealt with a wide range of government regulatory agencies over 35 years, dealing with both health care and small business, I am familiar with “peanut butter regulation.”

Peanut butter regulation spreads regulatory effort evenly over all regulated entities, even when it is well known that 20% of the targets represent 80% of the problems.

Nursing home regulation comes immediately to mind. Also food safety. And the SEC.

Regulation and regulatory capture are a hot topic these days. Do we need more targeted regulatory efforts?

Peanut butter regulation reminds me of drunk driving checkpoints, stop everybody and eventually the cops find a drunk. Is there a better way?

Some regulators are complaint based, such as wage-and-hour and OSHA, should these agencies be more like peanut butter?

We gotta get better.