This Bloomberg article on a proposed relaxing of certain regulations is so full of pearl clutching, the damn string should break.

The DOL will propose relaxing current rules – known as Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs) – that prohibit 16- and 17-year-old apprentices and student learners from receiving extended, supervised training in certain dangerous jobs, said the two sources. That includes roofing work, as well as operating chainsaws, and various other power-driven machines that federal law recognizes as too dangerous for youth younger than 18.

You mean, the jobs that are in demand? And they’ll be supervised? I’m not seeing a fucking problem here.

For fuck’s sake, every state allows sixteen and seventeen year olds to independently operate cars. You know, those two-thousand pound machines that can hurtle themselves down the road in excess of a hundred miles an hour? The ones that routinely kill 30,000 a year? If we can trust them to operate those machines, why couldn’t they operate others?