MediaWatch: January 1990
Table of Contents:
ABC's Unique View
20/20 HINDSIGHT
ABC 20/20's John Stossel offered a refreshingly different perspective on the 1980's. Stossel began his December 29 segment: "It's been a startling ten years...We got technologies that made our lives easier, more convenient or faster." Stossel noted that "all those inventions were terrific things, yet you almost didn't have some of them."
Why not? "In Washington, D.C., we have a rather awesome regulatory system....every year, they churn out thousands of regulations designed to make life safer or fairer, to try to make capitalism less harsh. Sometimes they succeed, but often they create tangled webs of laws that stop progress. Looking back at the '80s, I was struck by how many good things happened only because government and other authorities let go a little."
Stossel examined several businesses which owe their existence to deregulation and which make life better, easier, or cheaper. Deregulation allowed air freight companies such as Federal Express, "to fly their own planes and that let them implement the new technologies that revolutionized the shipping business."
The breakup of AT&T and deregulation allowed for lower phone rates, not to mention owning your own phone or answering machine. Stossel noted how ridiculous some regulations were, such as not letting people pump their own gasoline because "Regulators said, 'People cannot be trusted to do that. They'll blow themselves up.'"
Deregulation of the airlines meant that "Today, more people fly for less money." Stossel explained, "Of course, now there are more worries about safety, yet it may surprise you that the Transportation Department says since deregulation, fatal accidents are actually down per 100,000 departures. So are complaints."
What about the critics of deregulation? "Whenever Big Brother lets go," Stossel observed, "people are always saying that awful things are going to happen." When the government stopped controlling the price of gasoline, for example, many people, including the late ABC anchor Frank Reynolds, predicted prices would shoot up.
In fact, Stossel confirmed, "The competition of a free market held costs down better than government controls had....It's something to think about next decade, next time a politician says, 'This is something we must control.' Free markets are chaotic and frightening and filled with risk, but there is no question that when governments let go a little, economies thrive."
After Stossel's piece, Hugh Downs observed that the Soviets are moving away from central planning, prompting Stossel to point out: "We keep passing more rules. Every week, we pass another hundred regulations, the feds do, local governments do even more."
"I have to admit I hadn't known about the good things that deregulation may have brought," Downs conceded. "They're not publicized," Stossel interjected. Exactly. For breaking the media blackout, Stossel deserves a round of applause.
