And the people they are allegedly “protecting” self evidently don’t want their protection. The lack of a staircase–and the inaction of City Hall–had ALREADY caused ACTUAL, not theoretical, not possible, injuries.
Who is being protected here? BUREAUCRATS, who, if people realize they don’t need them, or would even be better off without them, might just tell them to go fuck themselves.
One thing I neglected to mention in my last post is that of course people who pay in less than they get out can be expected to support the Nanny State. They accepted long ago the price of being made into perennial beggars and children.
But the other element is those who USE government to gain advantages in what would otherwise be competitive free markets, which would constantly evolve to better serve the consumers at lower prices.
Here you almost certainly have a contracting firm or firms, which got written into the code–after some pricey lunches and hefty campaign contributions–unnecessarily restrictive building codes, which vastly increase the price of any work done pursuant to those codes. Given what we can assume are also licensing restrictions, they also likely cut out many potential competitors, like this old man who just wanted to see the fucking problem fixed.
On the one hand, you ensure all solutions are expensive and relatively profitable, even if contracts are bid, reducing overall profits a bit. On the other, you make sure your buddies are the ones awarding contracts. This is how you go from $500 to over $65,000, which is more than a 100 fold increase.
The world needs less of this, not more. We need less of this massive monster which exists for its own sake, and more of people exercising common sense and being allowed to do so, and even rewarded for doing so.