Sometime in 2023, although I don’t exactly remember when, I had a new ceiling fan and light installed in my office. It has “developed” an odd habit in that it turns itself on with the fan at the highest speed. When I told my electrician about this, he did not do the installation, he said the remote control was to blame.
I then began taking the battery out of the remote after turning off the light. The fan and light still turn on by themselves! I told my electrician that I thought the ceiling wiring had been done incorrectly. He doesn’t yet know that taking the battery out of the remote has not solved the problem. We need some electrical work done, anyway, and the ceiling fan/light will be on the agenda.
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This Substack piece by John Cochrane, AKA The Grumpy Economist, is titled “The cost of regulation.” Here is most of the beginning of his post:
“Just how much do ill-constructed regulations cost the US economy? That’s one of the great economic unknowns.
In this context I found a very interesting tidbit from Mary O’Grady’s coverage of President Milei’s reforms in Argentina.
Argentina’s deregulation czar, Federico Sturzenegger…[has] discovered a rough rule of thumb: Where deregulation happens, prices decline in the range of 30%. He has seen it in textiles, logistics and some agricultural products.
Notoriously, removing rent controls in Buenos Aires has lowered rents by about the same amount. The supply expansion overwhelmed the actual price control.
A price decline of 30% tells us that the economic benefit of deregulation is at least 30% of current income. Real GDP is price times quantity, so even if the quantity of the deregulated good does not change, a 30% decline in prices gives people that much more real income to spend on other things. And it’s a lower bound. If rents, textiles, and logistics decline in price by 30%, rent-paying businesses, clothes makers, and everyone who sends something anywhere by truck can expand their businesses.
Even 30% is a lot. That’s a decade of 3% extra growth. That’s the difference between the US and most of Europe. That’s orders of magnitude more than most conventional economists will allow as the cost of regulation.”
EVERYTHING is a trade-off and EVERYTHING has costs. Two North Carolina State economists concluded in a study that regulation had actually reduced US GDP by 70% from 1949 to whenever the study was done, which I think was 2005. Government takes your money in ways other than taxes.
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Here’s another way governments try to take your money: this Free Press article is titled “A Mom Asked for Public School Board Records. They Charged Her $33 Million.” The sub-head reads, “Parents are suing schools to find out what their kids are learning. Schools are suing parents to shut them up. How did we get here?”
While the damn virus was, no doubt, the impetus for the increase in the number of home-schooled children, that percentage still remains high as almost 7% of K-12 children are home-schooled. That number was about 4% in 2016.
Public education in America doesn’t seem to work for many students and parents, anymore. What’s the solution? I wish I knew, not that I could change anything by myself. However, since public schools are funded by taxpayers and are not involved in classified military projects almost anything a parent wants to see should be available to them and NOT for $33 million.
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From this recent CNBC article:
“Stellantis said Wednesday [December 18] it will further delay an all-electric RAM pickup from 2025 to 2026, as the automaker confronts slower-than-expected adoption of EVs and competitors struggle to make profits on electric trucks.”
Gee, we haven’t heard any actions like this before, have we?
STOP THE EV INSANITY!
#OddHappening
#STOPTHEEVINSANITY!