Regulations – Page 3 – artdiamondblog.com

Croatian Government Does Not Learn from Distant Past (or Recent Past) That Price Controls Do Not Work

In Croatia, as in the United States, inflation resulted when each government “flooded the country with cash” to buy votes during the Covid pandemic.

(p. 4) In 301 A.D., the Emperor Diocletian made a bold but ultimately unsuccessful bid to address the inflation that was rampaging across the eastern half of the divided Roman Empire.

Prices of everything from purple thread and feathers to slaves and cattle were dictated by his Edict on Maximum Prices. Violators faced the death penalty. Diocletian gave up power about four years after issuing his edict, watching his measure fail from his sprawling retirement palace in the heart of what became the city of Split in Croatia.

Now Croatia’s government is trying a similar tactic to rein in prices that have soared in recent years and sparked protests and retail boycotts by the country’s beleaguered consumers.

. . .

The rules that came into effect this month are the Croatian government’s third attempt at controlling prices by fiat since September 2022. The first two efforts were largely ineffective, with retailers simply refusing to stock most price-controlled goods.

. . .

Economists blame the increases on a three-headed hydra of pandemic-era economic rescue packages that flooded the country with cash, increases in public sector wages and retailers rounding up prices after Croatia adopted the euro in 2023.

. . .

John H. Cochrane, an economist and fellow at the Hoover Institution, a research center, pointed to the role Diocletian’s edict played in causing shortages and fueling a black market.

“It’s like trying to stem the symptoms rather than treating the underlying disease,” Mr. Cochrane said of price controls. “It offers people the appearance of help for a while, and then it takes a few weeks or, a month or two, for all the problems to break out.”

For the full story, see:

Joe Orovic. “A Croatian Plan to Rein In Prices Echoes the Tack of an Emperor.” The New York Times, First Section. (Sun., March 9, 2025): 4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version was updated March 10, 2025, and has the title “Echoing a Roman Emperor, Croatia Tries to Cap Soaring Prices.” Where there is a slight difference in wording, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Rice Prices Soar as Japan Government Pays Rice Farmers to NOT Grow Rice

The long-standing policy of Japan’s government is to pay rice famers to grow less rice in order to raise the price of rice, so that rice farmers will earn more. In February 2025 the price of rice in Japan rose by 81 percent and supermarkets limited how much rice consumers could purchase. The average earnings of rice farmers in 2022 was about $23,000 and was not high enough to stop the exodus of rice farmers from farming.

Maybe Japan does not have a comparative advantage in growing rice, possibly due to high land prices and worker wages. Maybe in a totally free world market, Japan would not and should not grow much rice, buying it instead from places where land and wages are cheaper. The Japanese government, and the rest of us too, should embrace laissez-faire.

Source of the Japan rice story is:

River Akira Davis and Hisako Ueno. “Japanese Rice Farmers Blame Shortages on ‘Misguided’ Government Rules.” The New York Times (Mon., March 31, 2025): B4.

(Note: the online version of the NYT article has the date March 30, 2025, and has the title “In Tokyo, Rice Farmers Protest ‘Misguided’ Rules Fueling Shortages.”)

“Republicans in Congress Have Embarked on a Spree of Deregulation”

If Trump achieves a new Golden Age it will be through his “spree of deregulation” (as the NYT labels it), not through his tariffs.

(p. 24) As President Trump moves unilaterally to slash the federal bureaucracy and upend longstanding policies, Republicans in Congress have embarked on a spree of deregulation, using an obscure law to quietly but steadily chip away at Biden-era rules they say are hurting businesses and consumers.

In recent weeks, the G.O.P. has pushed through a flurry of legislation to cancel regulations on matters large and small, from oversight of firms that emit toxic pollutants to energy efficiency requirements for walk-in freezers and water heaters.

To do so, they are employing a little-known 1996 law, the Congressional Review Act, that allows lawmakers to reverse recently adopted federal regulations with a simple majority vote in both chambers. It is a strategy they used in 2017 during Mr. Trump’s first term and are leaning on again . . .

. . .

Because resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act need only a majority vote, they are some of the only legislation that can avoid a filibuster in the Senate. This allows them to circumvent the partisan gridlock that stands in the way of most significant bills.

So far this year, Mr. Trump has signed three such measures: one overturning Biden-era regulations on cryptocurrency brokers, another canceling fees on methane emissions and a third doing away with additional environmental assessments for prospective offshore oil and gas developers. Another five, including one that eliminates a $5 cap on bank overdraft fees, have cleared Congress and await Mr. Trump’s signature.

That is a much slower pace than eight years ago, when Republicans erased 13 Obama administration rules within Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office. Before then, the law had been successfully used only once, when President George W. Bush reversed a Clinton-era ergonomics rule.

Now Republicans are trying to go much further with the law, including using it to effectively attack state regulations blessed by the federal government. The House this week passed three disapproval resolutions that would eliminate California’s strict air pollution standards for trucks and cars by rejecting waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency that allowed them to take effect.

. . .

Republicans, . . ., argue that the scope of their review prerogatives should not be determined by unelected bureaucrats.

“It’s members of Congress — not the G.A.O., not the parliamentarian — who decides how we proceed under the C.R.A.,” Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, said in a speech on the House floor.

For the full story, see:

Maya C. Miller. “Republicans Use an Obscure Statute to Roll Back Biden-Era Regulations.” The New York Times, First Section. (Sun., May 4, 2025): 24.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version has the date May 3, 2025, and has the title “Republicans in Congress Use Obscure Law to Roll Back Biden-Era Regulations.” The online version says that the print version of the article in the New York edition was on p. 20 of the First Section. But in my National edition of the print version the article was on p. 24 of the First Section.)

Ramaswamy “Mapped Out” Plan to “Dismantle Much of the Federal Government”

If you choose to submit a suggestion to the deregulatory “suggestion box,” you need to do so by May 12, 2025 for the suggestion to be considered. I apologize for not getting this information out earlier–I only read yesterday the article quoted below.

(p. A1) . . . at the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and television broadcasting and satellite communications, President Trump’s appointees published a seemingly exuberant notice asking for suggestions on which rules to get rid of, titled “DELETE, DELETE, DELETE.”

Across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry, Mr. Trump’s appointees are working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative headed by Elon Musk and also called DOGE, to launch a sweeping new phase in their quest to dismantle much of the federal government: deregulation on a mass scale.

Usually, the legal process of repealing federal regulations takes years — and rules erased by one administration can be restored by another. But after chafing at that system during his first term and watching President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enact scores of new rules pushed by the left, Mr. Trump has (p. A17) marshaled a strategy for a dramatic do-over designed to kill regulations swiftly and permanently.

At Mr. Trump’s direction, agency officials are compiling the regulations they have tagged for the ash heap, racing to meet a deadline next week after which the White House will build its master list to guide what the president called the “deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”

The approach, overseen by Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, rests on a set of novel legal strategies in which the administration intends to simply repeal or just stop enforcing regulations that have historically taken years to undo, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House theory relies on Supreme Court decisions — some recent and at least one from the 1980s — that they believe give them the basis for sweeping change.

. . .

The specifics of the new approach coalesced in the days after the election, when Mr. Musk teamed with Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump ally who co-founded the Department of Government Efficiency. As Mr. Musk pushed the DOGE team to quickly fire workers and eliminate government offices, Mr. Ramaswamy mapped out a more detailed plan to use a pair of recent Supreme Court rulings to seek out old regulations that, under the new decisions, could now be legally vulnerable.

One of those rulings, in 2022, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The other, in 2024, ended a precedent known as Chevron deference in which federal agencies were given wide legal latitude to interpret laws.

Together, the Supreme Court’s actions served to limit the broad regulatory authority of federal agencies, and Mr. Ramaswamy asserted that they could justify permanently erasing many rules that had been adopted before those precedents.

The mission has gained steam since the inauguration under the direction of Mr. Vought, who took over the planning after Mr. Ramaswamy left the Department of Government Efficiency to run for Ohio governor.

Mr. Trump ordered agency heads in February to work with DOGE teams to identify rules that impede technological innovation, energy production, and private enterprise and entrepreneurship, among other issues, giving them a 60-day window to prepare their target lists.

Mr. Musk, meanwhile, developed an artificial intelligence tool intended to comb through the 100,000-plus pages of the Code of Federal Regulations and identify rules that are outdated or legally vulnerable in the wake of the two Supreme Court decisions, according to two people familiar with the matter. It is not yet clear whether the tool has succeeded in its assignment, one of the people said.

. . .

Mr. Vought is seeking public input. He posted a call for ideas on the Federal Register, the government portal where the public can comment on proposed regulatory changes, adding a deregulatory “suggestion box.”

For the full story, see:

Coral Davenport. “Behind The Rush To Discard Rules And Reshape Life.” The New York Times. (Thurs., April 17, 2025): A1 & A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version was updated April 16, 2025 and has the title “Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations.”)

“Deregulation on a Mass Scale”

The NYT article that I refer to in my Facebook post above is:

Coral Davenport. “Behind The Rush To Discard Rules And Reshape Life.” The New York Times. (Thurs., April 17, 2025): A1 & A17.

(Note: the online version was updated April 16, 2025 and has the title “Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations.”)

(Note: the title of this entry is a quote from p. A1 of the article.)

Tim Friede’s “Daredevilry” in Taking 650 Venom Injections and 200 Poisonous Snake Bites to Help Create a Universal Antivenom “for Humanity”

Back during Covid, over 38,000 adults volunteered to participate in a “challenge” clinical trial of the new vaccines, but such trials were not allowed. In a challenge trial each participant receives the vaccine and then is exposed to the disease. Phase 3 trials for efficacy can be completed much more quickly, with many fewer participants, and at much lower costs, if the trials are “challenge” trials.

We allow people the freedom to dangerous actions for fun or excitement, or to help humanity, like Tim Friede (below) injecting snake venom and letting snakes bite him. Why then did we not allow challenge trials with the Covid vaccine?

Note on another issue, that the researchers are planning in their next step to test their antivenom on dogs who are bitten by snakes. This is a good example of my ideal use of dogs in medical research–where the trial aims at benefits for both the humans AND the dogs.

(p. A1) Over nearly 18 years, the man, Tim Friede, 57, injected himself with more than 650 carefully calibrated, escalating doses of venom to build his immunity to 16 deadly snake species. He also allowed the snakes — mostly one at a time, but sometimes two, . . . — to sink their sharp fangs into him about 200 times.

This bit of daredevilry (one name for it) may now help to solve a dire global health problem. More than 600 species of venomous snakes roam the earth, biting as many as 2.7 million people, killing about 120,000 people and maiming 400,000 others — numbers thought to be vast underestimates.

In Mr. Friede’s blood, scientists say they have identified antibodies that are capable of neutralizing the venom of multiple snake (p. A19) species, a step toward creating a universal antivenom, they reported on Friday [May 2, 2025] in the journal Cell.

“I’m really proud that I can do something in life for humanity, to make a difference for people that are 8,000 miles away, that I’m never going to meet, never going to talk to, never going to see, probably,” said Mr. Friede, who lives in Two Rivers, Wis., where venomous snakes are not much of a threat.

. . .

“This is a bigger problem than the first world realizes,” said Jacob Glanville, founder and chief executive of Centivax, a company that aims to produce broad-spectrum vaccines, and lead author on the study.

Dr. Glanville and his colleagues found that two powerful antibodies from Mr. Freide’s blood, when combined with a drug that blocks neurotoxins, protected mice from the venom of 19 deadly snake species of a large family found in different geographical regions.

This is an extraordinary feat, according to experts not involved in the work. Most antivenoms can counter the venom from just one or a few related snake species from one region.

The study suggests that cocktails of antitoxins may successfully prevent deaths and injuries from all snake families, said Nicholas Casewell, a researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England.

. . .

There were other mishaps — accidental bites, anaphylactic shocks, hives, blackouts. Mr. Friede describes himself as a nondegree scientist, but “there’s no college in the world that can teach you how to do it,” he said. “I was doing it on my own as best I could.”

Two teams of scientists sampled Mr. Friede’s blood over the years, but neither project led anywhere. By the time he met Dr. Glanville, in 2017, he was nearly ready to give up.

Dr. Glanville had been pursuing what scientists call broadly acting antibodies as the basis for universal vaccines against viruses. He grew up in a Maya village in the Guatemala highlands, and became intrigued by the possibility of using the same approach for universal antivenom.

. . .

The researchers next plan to test the treatment in Australia in any dogs that are brought into veterinary clinics for snakebites. They are also hoping to identify another component, perhaps also from Mr. Friede’s blood, that would extend full protection to all 19 snake species that were subjects of the research.

Mr. Friede himself is done now, however. His last bite was in November 2018, from a water cobra. He was divorced — his wife and children had moved out. “Well, that’s it, enough is enough,” he recalled thinking.

He misses the snakes, he said, but not the painful bites. “I’ll probably get back into it in the future,” he said. “But for right now, I’m happy where things are at.”

For the full story see:

Apoorva Mandavilli. “Man of 200 Snake Bites May Be the Antivenom.” The New York Times (Saturday, May 3, 2025): A1 & A19.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 2, 2025, and has the title “Universal Antivenom May Grow Out of Man Who Let Snakes Bite Him 200 Times.”)

The academic article in the journal Cell mentioned above is:

Glanville, Jacob, Mark Bellin, Sergei Pletnev, Baoshan Zhang, Joel Christian Andrade, Sangil Kim, David Tsao, Raffaello Verardi, Rishi Bedi, Sindy Liao, Raymond Newland, Nicholas L. Bayless, Sawsan Youssef, Ena S. Tully, Tatsiana Bylund, Sujeong Kim, Hannah Hirou, Tracy Liu, and Peter D. Kwong. “Snake Venom Protection by a Cocktail of Varespladib and Broadly Neutralizing Human Antibodies.” Cell 188 (2025): 1-18.

Democratic Donor Warren Buffett Praises DOGE

(p. A1) . . . at the end of Saturday’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, the Oracle of Omaha dropped a bonbshell before a gathering of some 17,000 shareholders: that he’s set to step aside as Berkshire CEO, with vice chairman Abel taking his place.

. . .

(p. A4) It was little surprise that the very first question from moderator Becky Quick of CNBC in the Saturday [May 3, 2025] Q&A had to do with tariffs.

. . .

While critical of Trump’s tariffs, Buffett had little bad to say about Trump’s budget and program-slashing Department of Government Efficiency.

He called the current 7% gap between the federal government’s revenues and expenditures unsustainable. Whether that’s two or 20 years “it’s something that cannot go on forever,” he said. And if it isn’t brought under control, he said, it risks rampant inflation.

“I think it’s a job I don’t want, but it’s a job I think should be done, and Congress doesn’t seem to be doing it,” Buffett said.

For the full story, see:

Cordes, Henry J. “Buffett to Step Down as CEO of Berkshire.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, May 4, 2025): A1 & A4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the article has the title “Warren Buffett stepping down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at end of year; shareholders react.”)

Trump Proposes to “Chop Domestic Spending to Its Lowest Level in the Modern Era”

Source of graph: NYT article cited below.

My entry today is part of a continuing effort to document Trump administrations actions to deregulate and downsize in the hope that the good from deregulation and government downsizing will dominate the bad potentially done by tariffs.

(p. A1) President Trump on Friday [May 2, 2025] proposed slashing $163 billion in federal spending next fiscal year, a drastic retrenchment in the role and reach of government that, if enacted, would eliminate a vast set of climate, education, health and housing programs, including some that benefit the poor.

Issuing his first budget proposal since returning to office, Mr. Trump sketched out a dim view of Washington. His blueprint depicted many core government functions as woke, weaponized, wasteful or radical, as the president looked to justify his request that Congress chop domestic spending to its lowest level in the modern era.

. . .

(p. A17) For Mr. Trump, the budget served to formalize his conservative vision and his disruptive reorganization of the government, a campaign that has already shuttered entire agencies and dismissed thousands of federal workers without the explicit approval of Congress.

. . .

. . ., many Republicans have echoed Mr. Trump’s desire to slash federal spending, though warring G.O.P. factions have disagreed at times over the exact scope.

Party lawmakers have also raced to identify potentially trillions of dollars in cuts that they can include to finance a related package that would expand a set of expiring tax cuts for families and businesses, one of the president’s signature — and costliest — economic policy priorities.

For the full story see:

Tony Romm. “Trump Seeks Drastic Cuts To Core of U.S. Spending.” The New York Times (Saturday, May 3, 2025): A1 & A17.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 2, 2025, and has the title “Trump Proposes $163 Billion in Cuts Across Government in New Budget.”)

Private Sector Succeeds Where Public Sector Fails at Operating a Successful Passenger Train

The New York Times recently ran a surprising (for them) article highlighting the success of the privately owned Brightline passenger railroad on the east coast of Florida. The Times contrasts the private success of Brightline with the public failures of Amtrak and California’s mostly undone proposed bullet train. Amtrak ran an operating deficit of over $700 million in 2024. The long-planned, barely-begun, pared-back California bullet train is now estimated to require over $100 billion to reach completion.

Maybe Brightline succeeds because the private sector allows entrepreneurs to use what Deirdre McCloskey calls trade-tested innovation to pursue their projects.

The private sector allows innovative dynamism.

The New York Times article is:

Michael Kimmelman. “What’s So Hard About Building High-Speed Trains?” The New York Times (Sat., April 19, 2025): B4-B5.

(Note: the online version of the article was updated April 18, 2025, and has the title “What’s So Hard About Building Trains?”)

McCloskey discusses trade-tested innovation in:

McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital, Transformed the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2016.

I discuss innovative dynamism in:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

“If She Ever Had a Clever Thought, It Died Alone and Afraid”

I still smile whenever I see a Tesla Cybertruck. Boldly audacious–its mere existence gives me hope for the future. If I could charge its battery as fast as I can fill a tank of gas, I would buy one tomorrow. I still worry that Musk will implode or cave. But right now he looks like a genuine hero, defending free speech by buying Twitter, taking on the deep state by creating DOGE, solving the engineering challenges to make the dream of Mars a reality!

(p. B1) When Jennifer Trebb first pulled into her driveway two years ago with her sleek Tesla Model Y, it was — as she put it — “kind of like a ‘Back to the Future’ moment.”

She was helping the environment, she said, but driving a Tesla also had cachet. “It was definitely a little bit of a cool moment to have something that was innovative and different,” she said.

But Ms. Trebb recently made a U-turn, joining the ranks of Tesla owners in the United States and overseas — some well known, including the singer Sheryl Crow — who are selling their vehicles because the values and politics of the company’s billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, are alienating them, they say.

. . .

(p. B6) In the United States, perhaps the most notable rebuke of the car brand was lodged by Ms. Crow, the singer-songwriter, who posted an Instagram video in February [2025] showing her waving goodbye as her electric vehicle was driven away on a flatbed truck.

. . .

In an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, mocked Ms. Crow’s protest.

“I think she means well, but if she ever had a clever thought, it died alone and afraid,” Mr. Kennedy said.

For the full story see:

Neil Vigdor. “Tesla for Sale: Buyer’s Remorse Sets In For E.V. Owners Who’ve Soured on Musk.” The New York Times (Friday, March 7, 2025): B1 & B6.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated March 5, 2025, and has the title “Tesla for Sale: Buyer’s Remorse Sinks In for Elon Musk’s E.V.-Owning Critics.”)

Trump Hits ‘New High Water Mark’ for Deregulation

In my friendly debate with fellow libertarians, the passages quoted below support my claim/hope that Trump’s deregulation and downsizing efforts will prove to be substantial.

(p. A2) WASHINGTON—President Trump is following through on his pledge to usher in one of the most sweeping deregulatory drives in modern U.S. history, moving swiftly to slash environmental rules and bank oversight, remove barriers to cryptocurrencies, and reverse the Biden administration’s restrictions on energy production.

The most aggressive plans for a red-tape rollback have come from the Environmental Protection Agency, which in a single day announced 31 actions to deregulate U.S. environmental policies, including rules for power plants, the oil-and-gas industry, electric vehicles and wastewater.

Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas exporter, in early March announced an $18 billion investment in a Louisiana project, following the administration’s reversal of President Joe Biden’s freeze on approvals for LNG gas export plants, which has yielded plans for new projects and expansions. The Trump administration is “getting the red tape, getting the federal government off the back of the worker, off the back of companies,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an address to workers at the Louisiana facility.

. . .

Trump’s deregulatory moves are widespread: The Securities and Exchange Commission is backing away from Biden’s climate-related disclosure rules; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rolled back a Biden-era policy that had stepped up scrutiny of large bank mergers; and the Interior and Housing and Urban Development departments are aiming to streamline regulations to spur the construction of housing on millions of acres of federal land.

Taken together, Trump’s moves are setting “the new high water mark in terms of the deregulatory agenda,” said Travis Fisher, who served in the first Trump administration and is now the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank. He added that Trump is “moving more boldly than Ronald Reagan.”

Investors, bullish about Trump’s deregulatory agenda, sent stocks soaring after the election.

For the full story see:

Scott Patterson and Amrith Ramkumar. “Deregulation Hits ‘New High Water Mark’.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 29, 2025): A2.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 28, 2025, and has the title “Trump Ushers In ‘New High Water Mark’ for Deregulation.” The passages quoted include a couple of sentences that appear in the online, but not the printed, version of the article.)