Richard I of England Quotes
All woolen cloths shall everywhere be made of the same breadth, two ells within the lifts …. The ell shall be of the same length over all the kingdom …. No merchant in and part of the Kingdom of England shall stretch before his shop or booth a red or black cloth, or any other thing, by which the sight of buyers is frequently deceived in the choice of good cloth ….. In all cities and burghs, 4 to 6 men, according to the size of the place, shall be appointed to enforce the observation of these regulations by seizing the persons and goods of those who transgress them.
This is one of the earliest examples of regulation for consumer protection. Later, the Magna Carta would incorporate the concept of standard weights and measures.
Richard I, 1157-1199, (Richard Lion-Heart), King of England, Law Promulgated in 1197
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Sealed under duress and later repudiated by the King with Papal assistance
Regulation had been adopted to make sure that certain products were made to standards and appropriate quality. A small fee was taken by the regulator to attest to the quality and place a seal on it. However, the system degenerated into a system where one had to pay the fee and everything passed inspection without regard for quality. Child was one of the first observers of the criticality of implementation of regulatory schemes and the danger that a regulatory system was vulnerable to corruption.
The Grammar Curmudgeon
A Pure Food bill had failed to pass the Congress for years until Roosevelt took up the cause. The modern federal role in the quality control of food products had its origins with TR.
At the time of this interview there had been a decade of business fraud at many different levels. The regulatory agencies supposedly responsible for the regulation had neither the staff or the political will to even enforce the laws and regulations then in existence and there were many loopholes in those. Many business interests opposed all regulation and strict enforcement as a diminution of the health of the economy. Others, like Greenspan, saw fraud as corrupting the markets themselves and therefore the usual capitalistic economic competitive forces that would control business do not operate with extensive fraud.
While the statement can be taken as a tautology saying nothing, it can also be seen as a consumer protection effort as it was common for quart bottles, especially of whiskey, to not be filled with a quart of contents. This quotation is very often given incorrectly as “Every pint bottle should contain a quart.”
These appear to be the first economic regulations of New England. Note that although there was a Governor of the Colony, such economic issues were considered to be fundamentally religious in nature. Therefore Cotton—the leading cleric of the colony—was called upon to in effect legislate on the subject. Ironically, this is not terribly different from the theocracy in Iran or some other Muslim countries of today where like some of the early American Colonies, there was no separation of church and state.
More than 20 years later, after unregulated finance enabled the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, finally got the Securities and Exchange Commission passed by Congress. By the beginning ot the 21st century
1st Baron Macaulay. This issue is still debated in America. Until the latter part of the 20th century, businesses could sell supposed medicines without any proof of efficacy or safety. The Government or others had to prove that there was something wrong with the product. Then, that shifted, and the burden of proof fell on the developer and seller of medicines as Macaulay favored, but sellers of vitamins and dietary supplements were exempted and operated under the previous American (anti Macaulay) position. Ironically, political opponents of requiring the drug company to prove safety and efficacy claimed that this was a radical new, untested idea that would inhibit development of medicinals. They did not realize that 150 years earlier, this was a standard, accepted point of view in England. Even into the 21st century, America operated with the inconsistent difference between vitamins and supplements, many of which have no beneficial effect whatsoever, and medicines.
The Commission is not a law enforcement agency in the sense that it can initiate or prosecute a civil or criminal lawsuit against a party that is breaking the law. The Commission however, can refer cases to the Justice Department and turn over their findings with a recommendation to prosecute. However, under George W. Bush, the policy was not to even do that. Chairman Majoras actually persuaded the Bush Justice Department to terminate efforts to prosecute Intel and other companies that previous Commissions had recommended prosecuting.
Marcopolos had discovered the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme Fraud 9 years before the government discovered the largest consumer fraud ($68 billion) in American financial history. He repeatedly sent warnings and explanations to the SEC investigators, most of which turned out to be exactly right. They ignored all of it I an era of deregulation, and never even investigated Madoff to see if there might be anything amiss.
She was then the European Commissioner for Competition.
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199), known as Richard Coeur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior, was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Gascony; Lord of Cyprus; Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes; and was overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was the third of five sons of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and was therefore not expected to become king, but his two elder brothers predeceased their father.
