Topic: Licensing craziness

[Pandora]

Take a look at the list at the link of for what states insist on licenses.  Interior decorator?  Really?  Mind-boggling.

Seriously, it takes over $1000, 1460 hours of special education, and the passing of two tests to be a floor sanding contractor in Nevada.  This is an amazing roundup of state licensure requirements, via Reason.  Note the profession at the top of the list of requirements, which by implication is the most dangerous possible activity to customers if it is done poorly.

A reminder from Milton Friedman on professional licensing:

    The justification offered is always the same: to protect the consumer. However, the reason is demonstrated by observing who lobbies at the state legislature for the imposition or strengthening of licensure. The lobbyists are invariably representatives of the occupation in question rather than of the customers. True enough, plumbers presumably know better than anyone else what their customers need to be protected against. However, it is hard to regard altruistic concern for their customers as the primary motive behind their determined efforts to get legal power to decide who may be a plumber.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/05/licensing-craziness.html

[Libertas]

I wonder how the Amish get around some of this bovine fecal matter...religious exception?

Earth Driller?  WTF is that about?  Sounds like something I'd like...punch holes in Gaia!   

Cosmetologist, Skin care specialist, make up artist, shampooer (that is not a word, is it?!) & manicurist are all related, right?  (Maybe also...mason, landscaper, upholsterer, taxidermist & funeral attendant for those who hit mutliple branches of the ugly tree!)

Milk sampler?  Really?  WTF?

Packager?   

Gubmint blows!

[charlesoakwood]

I am a licensed mother pheasant plucker.
I pluck mother pheasants.
I am the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker
that ever plucked a mother pheasant.
                                                       

[Libertas]

Can you say that really fast?

 

[BMG]

I am a licensed mother pheasant plucker.
I pluck mother pheasants.
I am the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker
that ever plucked a mother pheasant.
                                                       

       

[LadyVirginia]

 

I hate that licensing crap.

It is a scam.  Even in the professions for which we might all agree need licenses the regulatory boards are slow to act on incompetent licensees.

On a some what related note, the community college near me is now advertising a degree in sales (not marketing and sales, just sales)!  I found a site that describes  a sales and marketing degree:

Career Opportunities

Typical Careers
 
The following is a list of careers typically pursued by graduates of a sales and marketing associate's degree program along with their median annual incomes as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) for May 2004:
 Sales Representative: $58, 580
Retail Sales Associate: $8.98 (hourly)
Customer Service Representative: $27,020

link

So in a few years you won't be able to get a job at GAP unless you have a degree and burning desire to work in retail for the rest of your life. Well, I guess it beats getting a four year degree in women's studies and then working at GAP.

[charlesoakwood]

LV, did you say women's studies? What about women's hormonal studies? 
What about hot Latin women's studies?  Hey professor, don't get too close
to your work.

Stiletto Heels Earn Their Name

A man stabbed to death with a stiletto high heel allegedly wielded by his girlfriend spent the last three and a half years as a top researcher in women's health issues at the University of Houston.
Professor Alf Stefan Andersson, 59, had been studying hormones in women's reproductive health since December 2009 at the university's Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling.

...Andersson's girlfriend, Ana Lilia Trujillo, 44, was charged with murder.
Houston police were sent to a Museum District high-rise in the 1700 block of Hermann shortly after 3:30 a.m. Sunday to investigate reports of an assault in progress inside the victim's luxury condominium.
Trujillo answered the door and Andersson was found dead from multiple stab wounds to the head, Houston police said. HPD homicide detectives questioned Trujillo.
She admitted killing Andersson but said it was in self-defense because he had attacked her, said officials with the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

[Glock32]

That certainly puts a new twist on the Nancy Sinatra classic.

[LadyVirginia]

That certainly puts a new twist on the Nancy Sinatra classic.