Idiot GovernmentOregon State Idea of Engineering Is Not Keeping Up With The Times

It is a well known phenomenon that groups of professionals and specialized trade workers create a guild, with the intention of limiting competition and serving their own financial interest. Guilds do their best to retain the status quo and deliberately mount obstacles in the way of newcomers trying to enter a specific field of employment. This phenomenon existed for the last few centuries and served to enrich guild members very well, many times by recruiting governments to their aid. However, it is not clear if society at large is a beneficiary of this protectionist and restrictive concept and if restricting competition is a worthy cause for maintaining a viable economy in this day and age.

I was amazed to read an article in Motherboard entitled:
Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am An Engineer' in an Email to the Government.

I suggest for all of you to read the original article (see link below) and draw your own conclusions.

In summary, Mats Järlström, a private citizen with electrical engineering education, has written a well formed letter to his State Government. The letter specified facts about the shortcomings of traffic lights operations, providing important actionable information. Instead of responding to the good intentioned letter and fixing the problem, the State of Oregon, chose to pick on this Good Samaritan and nail him with a $500 fine for an obscure law violation. The State of Oregon claimed that Mats violated the law by declaring that he is an engineer, while he is not registered with the State.

Clearly, the State of Oregon is protecting the special interest of the old guilds through its actions and you can bet on entrenched interests doing their best to keep this situation forever. In these times, when innovation and science are open for all and new disciplines of engineering are opening up, the State of Oregon, in its official policy, is doing its best to keep us tied to the horse and buggy days and perhaps to the revival of the fur trapping and timber logging economy. Ancient regulations that do not keep up with the times, do not advance the interests of Oregon economy and will not create new jobs.

There is a good reason for the multi-billion budget deficit that the State of Oregon is facing for the next bi-annual budget, in spite of the high personal tax rates that the state treasury is collecting. The reason is the high cost of government. Part of this cost is apparently being spent on protecting the entrenched guilds constituency and the out of date policies of the pre-industrial revolution. For all of you who declare yourselves as "software engineer", or "electronics engineer", or "biochemical engineer", beware! The State of Oregon is coming to get you.

Read the original Motherboard article at: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/man-fined-dollar500-for-crime-of-writing-i-am-an-engineer-in-an-email-to-the-government

All the best.

--Dr. Flywheel