Which means that the only way back to more sensible regimes is also a political one.
A sensible fiscal regime would allow scope for additional, discretionary loosening of fiscal policy.
"Permitting cloning for biomedical research now, while governing it through a prudent and sensible regulatory regime, is the most appropriate way to allow important research to proceed while insuring that abuses are prevented," the minority wrote.
Schneider duly concentrated its defence on that, only for the deal to be rejected on quite different grounds, leaving it no time to suggest remedies.First, a coherent policySuch a public savaging means that Mr Monti must, as a matter of urgency, demonstrate that he presides over a fair and sensible competition regime.
The problem is that nobody really likes what's in the deal, so Canadian negotiators have been working to carve out exceptions for our country's cultural products, sensible copyright regime, and coddled dairy farmers, among other things.
These gun owners don't want guns in the wrong hands for the same reasons as non-gun owners -- they are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who care about the safety of family, friends and community -- and they know their rights are made more secure by a sensible regulatory regime.
There are some very sensible testing regimes around seed and plant health to reduce diseases, and of course we have the Trades Description Act and consumer protection laws which should protect the seed-buying public (though insufficient resources mean there are still cowboys out there in the seed wild west).
This is how US copyright holders argue but the right course for the rest of the world is not to copy them - which the Chinese and Indians most certainly won't do - but to take advantage of their self-destructive folly by sticking to more sensible copyright regimes, where both the protection and the end of protection that the law provides are beneficial to us all.
That sounds sensible; the current regime is very complicated.
The lesson for EPA is that it would be futile to try to build a sensible, protective permitting regime on top of this absurd foundation laid by the Bush Administration.
