Topic: Regulation

Earth Day 50 Years Later

– April 22, 2020

While environmental quality has been enhanced markedly, the presence of command-and-control has made the environmental journey slower and more costly than it might have been otherwise.

Energy, Regulation

Good Riddance to Recycling Trucks

– April 20, 2020

I was pleasantly surprised that curbside recycling has been suspended–for explicitly environmental and epidemiological reasons. Maybe curbside recycling is gone for good, which would free up resources that would then be available to expand the kinds of operations that actually help the environment.

Crisis, Regulation

Free to Choose a Possible Cure

– April 17, 2020

Of course much is uncertain. The outcomes of racing in NASCAR, climbing Mount Everest, and launching into space are uncertain. Yet we allow adults to choose to race, climb, and launch. So, how can we forbid a patient with Covid-19 from taking experimental drugs?

Crisis, Regulation

Now It’s Obvious: The Political Class and the Media Are Spinning Tales

– April 14, 2020

Rather than accepting the epistemic limitations of the current crisis as a reason to abstain from aggressive policies, they double down on the same. And when their chosen courses go awry or fail to deliver on their promised salvation, history is rewritten to obscure the fact that such promises were ever made.

Crisis, Regulation

The Monumental Failure of the CDC

– April 11, 2020

This time, these government failures have resulted in millions of Americans being all stuck in their homes, schools being closed, the economy in a recession, and 18,000 people having died so far.

Crisis, Economic History, History, Regulation

The 100-Day Disaster that Befell America

– April 10, 2020

It took only 100 days to asphyxiate the world economy and the suggestion of possible sickness to render a nation once characterized by rugged individualism, personal liberty, bravery and industry into house-bound milksops.

Crisis, Regulation

May this Crisis Shock Us Into Embracing Freedom

– April 4, 2020

During a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, certain things suddenly come into sharp focus. In this case, we are overwhelmed with examples of how regulatory barriers, restrictions, and blockages have hindered the ability of society to adapt to rapidly c …

Crisis, Policy, Regulation

People Adapt, Thwarting Government Plans

– April 3, 2020

If you derive no other takeaway from the political response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, let it be this: human behavior adapts in real-time to ever-changing expectations of the future.

Crisis, Regulation

We Don’t Yet Live in a Police State. Or Perhaps We Do.

– April 1, 2020

Government advice is just that, good or bad and I grant that it is mostly sensible. But it is not for the police to misinterpret the law as they see fit or to enforce government advice.

Regulation

The Best-laid Plans Often Go Astray, Even for Macroprudential Regulators

– March 24, 2020

The problem with this comment is its failure to be the least bit realistic. It ignores a basic fact: whatever plans regulators have in place for a financial crisis or for a pandemic causing financial distress or some other event causing financial distress–any plan, that is–will be wrong in important ways.

Regulation

Governor Cuomo Endorses Price Gouging; Sign the Petition

– March 24, 2020

It is a back-handed “endorsement” of market principles from the governor of New York, but we will take it.

Crisis, Regulation

Rethink the Disease-Spreading Hand Dryer in a Pandemic

– March 23, 2020

The effect is akin to setting off an airborne bomb of viruses and bacteria inside a restroom, with mounting evidence showing that they also quickly disperse throughout the attached buildings.