<story><title>You&apos;re Gonna Need a License for That</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-17/you-re-going-to-need-a-license-for-that-job</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lucaspiller</author><text>As UK citizen it really surprises me how much things are licensed and regulated in the US. I&amp;#x27;ve been following &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;diy recently, and in some states you need to be licensed to even change a light switch. I assume this is to prevent someone from doing it wrong and burning down a 10 storey apartment building, but come on? Can&amp;#x27;t you trust people to use their own judgement as to whether they can do it sensibly or not?&lt;p&gt;Today I read a story about a car getting tickets for $100k [0], one of the tickets was for being in a &amp;quot;hazardous and dilapidated condition&amp;quot;, broken headlights and cracked windows. I&amp;#x27;m currently living in Rome, Italy - the traffic wardens would have a field day here, basically every car has some sort of damage from an incident.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t even get me started about HOA rules...&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thenewspaper.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;39&amp;#x2F;3958.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thenewspaper.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;39&amp;#x2F;3958.asp&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>adekok</author><text>The attitude of &amp;quot;license all the things&amp;quot; comes from two places.&lt;p&gt;Existing groups use licensing to shut out newcomers.  They are largely anti-competitive, and anti-capitalistic.&lt;p&gt;The other is where unlicensed activities results in people dying.  The outrage from such events often ends up with &amp;quot;license the people&amp;quot;, so that Bad Things can&amp;#x27;t happen.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s arguably a better approach, for mechanics, nuclear power technicians, etc.  Perhaps even hairdressers, who work with toxic chemicals and need to know basic safety.&lt;p&gt;For me, the &amp;quot;health and safety&amp;quot; requirements make sense.  Anything outside of that is typically anti-competitive, and likely rent-seeking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drhayes9</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know how I feel about this issue. Haven&amp;#x27;t decided.&lt;p&gt;But if my neighbor miswires a light switch and it starts a fire that burns my house down because they&amp;#x27;re close together, that would suck. In that situation, I would have wanted a say in whether my neighbor chose to do that themselves or hire someone who knows what they&amp;#x27;re doing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m living in a house that is filled with small jobs that seemed like they were done by someone who didn&amp;#x27;t know what they were doing. Lots of scrap lumber, mis-matching parts, electrical re-wires that just didn&amp;#x27;t work, etc. I&amp;#x27;m glad I don&amp;#x27;t need a permit to fix some of that myself, but I would&amp;#x27;ve loved to stop this guy before he did these things.&lt;p&gt;Or if someone&amp;#x27;s half-assery endangered otherwise innocent lives. Note: not necessarily crying &amp;quot;save the children!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Innocent&amp;quot; as in &amp;quot;couldn&amp;#x27;t influence decision to get someone who knows what they&amp;#x27;re doing&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>You&apos;re Gonna Need a License for That</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-17/you-re-going-to-need-a-license-for-that-job</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lucaspiller</author><text>As UK citizen it really surprises me how much things are licensed and regulated in the US. I&amp;#x27;ve been following &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;diy recently, and in some states you need to be licensed to even change a light switch. I assume this is to prevent someone from doing it wrong and burning down a 10 storey apartment building, but come on? Can&amp;#x27;t you trust people to use their own judgement as to whether they can do it sensibly or not?&lt;p&gt;Today I read a story about a car getting tickets for $100k [0], one of the tickets was for being in a &amp;quot;hazardous and dilapidated condition&amp;quot;, broken headlights and cracked windows. I&amp;#x27;m currently living in Rome, Italy - the traffic wardens would have a field day here, basically every car has some sort of damage from an incident.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t even get me started about HOA rules...&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thenewspaper.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;39&amp;#x2F;3958.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thenewspaper.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;39&amp;#x2F;3958.asp&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>adekok</author><text>The attitude of &amp;quot;license all the things&amp;quot; comes from two places.&lt;p&gt;Existing groups use licensing to shut out newcomers.  They are largely anti-competitive, and anti-capitalistic.&lt;p&gt;The other is where unlicensed activities results in people dying.  The outrage from such events often ends up with &amp;quot;license the people&amp;quot;, so that Bad Things can&amp;#x27;t happen.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s arguably a better approach, for mechanics, nuclear power technicians, etc.  Perhaps even hairdressers, who work with toxic chemicals and need to know basic safety.&lt;p&gt;For me, the &amp;quot;health and safety&amp;quot; requirements make sense.  Anything outside of that is typically anti-competitive, and likely rent-seeking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ghaff</author><text>The viral Australian &amp;quot;Dumb Ways to Die&amp;quot; video from a couple of years back by Metro Trains Melbourne included a snippet about &amp;quot;doing your own electrical work&amp;quot; which seemed rather incongruous to me as a fairly typical American with a house who doesn&amp;#x27;t think twice about swapping light switches and such. (Especially given the popular image of self-reliant Australians and all that--however atypical sheep and cattle stations may be of the average resident.)&lt;p&gt;When I commented about this previously though, I was told it reflected strong union etc. rules in Australia.&lt;p&gt;In practice, in the US, lots of people do some amount of their home repairs including electrical. I&amp;#x27;m sure, in many cases, that work is theoretically supposed to be done by a licensed electrician, plumber, etc.</text></comment>