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We need dramatic supply-side improvements to get our way out of this inflationary spiral. We need to unleash America's entrepreneurs to create more stuff to so

We need dramatic supply-side improvements to get our way out of this inflationary spiral. We need to unleash America's entrepreneurs to create more stuff to soak up this excess money. More housing. Lots more housing. More products with fewer roadblocks to bring products to market. The fact that it took over a year for American masks to come to market, just in time for them to not be needed, in large part because of regulation is a sign of how bad things have gotten here. We need more energy too -- wind, solar, nuclear, and yes fossil fuels too. (Our current policy of begging Saudi Arabia to provide us more oil, when we have plenty in our own backyard makes zero strategic sense. Not to mention how high fuel prices are enriching our adversaries like Russia.)

lumost 4y ago
Is it really regulation? Anecdotally this appears to be a knowledge/capability problem. We haven't grown domestic industry in so long that I honestly don't think many still know how to actually build. If you give money to businesses that for the last 50 years have simply become experts at dealing with international supply chains... You’re probably just going to have the money sent abroad.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  It's surprising how regs slow things down - it's just an accumulation. Southern Cal wanted a desalination plant. Spent a TON of time in development. Shot down. Repeat time 100x, kind of crushing I think.
  - supertrope 4y ago
    When the drought is extreme enough government regulations will be changed. Like how environmental reviews are being shoved to the side to export LNG to Europe. But before we build extremely expensive desalination, more effective and lower cost actions must come first. Reforming water rights law to stop insane use it or lose it incentives (e.g. flood irrigation of almond trees). Renegotiating water treaties. Increasing water efficiency in agriculture. Xeriscaping. Higher water prices that will hold down demand and provide a self-enforcing incentive to reduce waste, leaks, and low value water consumption. And better finance water works. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
    - onphonenow 4y ago
      And this is where we run slam into problems. This was privately developed and paid for. YOU have decided that another solution "MUST" come first because supposedly you understand the economics better. But these guys were willing to stick some money behind their idea. Govt cannot understand why private enterprise works, and this shoes it. Why not let them lose their shirts if it is such a stupid idea (hint, it's not and the folks talking down the economics are going to have massive egg on their face in 5 years). In private enterprise without the blocking power of the red tape its likely a number of solutions could be brought to bear. More market rate water pricing (hello alfalfa for china). Actual development of additional water sources (despite billions we get bupkis despite massive population growth). Instead, we are getting local residential water use regulations that are comically extreme, and on a % basis do almost nothing. And yes, the penalty rates for certain residential water use make that "extremely expensive" desalination plant look very very cheap. Literally every proposal is met by some govt or other do gooder saying it's not good enough and there is something better to do - meanwhile nothing happens. That is until enough stupidity collects in a room and we get multi-billion dollar expenditures on things like hydrogen with almost no natural market demand.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  The amount of paperwork and approvals even simple businesses require to get off the ground is mind boggling. Some make sense. Most, from Phoenix’s generic municipal business licenses to California’s foreign entity fees or New York’s entity publication requirement to Texas’s hairdresser licensing requirements or many HOAs’ aesthetic policies do not.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Have you researched why those regulations came about?
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Have you researched why those regulations came about? Yes. Almost all of them stem from before the internet. Publication requirements prevented accidental trademark infringement and provided public notice. Similarly for foreign entity registration. Business licenses linked business addresses to the tax registry. Hairdressing because many barbers provided shaves, which involves a sanitary component.
daniel-s 4y ago
I think you diagnosed the problem, but not in the way that you think. We have huge price increases because the governments printed money for so long. Price increases were always predicted by free market economists. You don't make anyone wealthier by printing money. You don't build factories, make people smarter or increase resources. All it does is redistribute wealth to the first people that get to use the new money (banks and wealthy elites) and increase prices.
- nostromo 4y ago
  I'm well aware the cause of inflation is bad monetary policy. But now we have two options: control inflation by causing a severe downturn that will be painful, or control inflation with supply-side economics. We need to match supply and demand -- either by reducing demand with a recession, or by increasing the supply of goods and services. Increasing the supply side of the equation will be better for everyone.
- lupire 4y ago
  This isn't really relevant. Either formula buyers have more money and so they can afford formula, or they don't and so formula would not inflate as much as other products. Inflation only hurts when some buyers of a scarce good are benefiting more from money printing than others. This doesn't apply to consumer commodities.
- pas 4y ago
  > We have huge price increases because the governments printed money for so long. Not really. The unemployment checks did result in inflation, but the huge increase since November is because higher order supply chain issues (that started with the pandemic, ships waiting for unloading for many days, longshoreman on sick leave due to COVID, lack of empty containers, trucking industry problems, big swings of spending from services to products due to working from home, semiconductor shortages completely fucking up manufacturing schedules, then a few new waves of COVID in China, and so on). There's also a cascade effect that happens because if something is out of stock people will buy something else, so the price of that will go up initially, then it will also go out of stock, because the next batches are sitting in containers somewhere. > You don't make anyone wealthier by printing money. That's not how it works. Public spending has a fiscal multiplier, if that's greater than 1 then it does increase wealth. Public services, infrastructure, education, healthcare, all have high multipliers. Of course some have less than one, eg. giving tax credits to Amazon for moving their HQ, end of life hospitalization is arguably overdone in developed countries, a large chunk of military spending, spending public money on sports/stadiums, etc. On top of this printing money during a pandemic is extending credit in time, so the private sector doesn't start a contagious bankruptcy chain. ... Then after all this the Fed did wait too much to increase rates. (Mostly because the unemployment numbers were/are still high.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> 'it took over a year for American masks to come to market, just in time for them to not be needed, in large part because of regulation' What it really regulation that was at fault for masks being so delayed? The entire suplly chail for meltblown is missing. There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen than in all of North America combined. A basic masks that an average citizen had to wear to take the metro does not even come with any medical certification, what regulation was getting in the way, the need to file taxes?
- lupire 4y ago
  > There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen than in all of North America combined. This is because tariffs are not high enough to compensate for Chinese workers being paid below US minimum wage.
  - kokken 4y ago
    Chinese tooling engineers are highly paid
    - gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
      https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/tooling-engineer/china https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/tooling-engineer/chi... Average pay is ¥230,664 or approximately $34,000 USD. That's probably pretty good at twice the average Chinese salary.
rilezg 4y ago
This is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of any externalities. We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations. I do not want 'America's entrepreneurs' to start producing infant formula without any safeguards. That is recipe for disaster.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  >We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations. So how is that not losing American manufacturing to regulation? If other countries have laxer and more favorable terms for businesses and those business are succeeding, that's sufficient evidence to demonstrate that regulation stifles manufacturing. You phrase your statement as though regulations are naturally occurring substances rather than the wishful, bureaucratic, and often violent mandates of government that they are. If the government has enough agency to compose such regulations, it should have enough agency to acknowledge and accept the resulting consequences when businesses vote with their feet and their wallets.
  - rilezg 4y ago
    What I am saying is that in order for regulations to NOT cause businesses to 'vote with their feet and their wallets', we must also enact trade policies so that it is NOT cheaper for businesses to seek the laxest regulation (i.e. enforce tariffs for the difference in cost). If we do not care enough about the regulation to have a tariff, then the regulation should not exist. >You phrase your statement as though regulations are a naturally occurring substances rather than wishful and often violent mandates of government that they are. Lol, what is this even? I'll bite though. Regulations are naturally occurring insofar as any other human invention is naturally occurring. All laws are regulations on behavior, and all laws are wishful. There is still murder even though we have laws against shooting people. For me, at least, that is not a reason to do away with laws, but to each their own.
vegetablepotpie 4y ago
> and yes fossil fuels too It depends on your goals, if you want to absolutely destroy the global economy and wealth in 30 years for a short term shot in the arm, then sure.
bandyaboot 4y ago
Has there been a president more willing to burn regulations than Trump? If the delay happened despite him being in charge, perhaps the explanation is more complex than “it happened cuz regulation”?
- specialist 4y ago
  Yes. Presiden Carter. He got the ball rolling, no small feat. Also accomplished more than Reagan, who nonetheless got all the credit. President Clinton was also committed to regulatory reform, but I can't judge how his admin compares.

lumost 4y ago

Is it really regulation? Anecdotally this appears to be a knowledge/capability problem. We haven't grown domestic industry in so long that I honestly don't think many still know how to actually build. If you give money to businesses that for the last 50 years have simply become experts at dealing with international supply chains... You’re probably just going to have the money sent abroad.

onphonenow 4y ago
It's surprising how regs slow things down - it's just an accumulation. Southern Cal wanted a desalination plant. Spent a TON of time in development. Shot down. Repeat time 100x, kind of crushing I think.
- supertrope 4y ago
  When the drought is extreme enough government regulations will be changed. Like how environmental reviews are being shoved to the side to export LNG to Europe. But before we build extremely expensive desalination, more effective and lower cost actions must come first. Reforming water rights law to stop insane use it or lose it incentives (e.g. flood irrigation of almond trees). Renegotiating water treaties. Increasing water efficiency in agriculture. Xeriscaping. Higher water prices that will hold down demand and provide a self-enforcing incentive to reduce waste, leaks, and low value water consumption. And better finance water works. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    And this is where we run slam into problems. This was privately developed and paid for. YOU have decided that another solution "MUST" come first because supposedly you understand the economics better. But these guys were willing to stick some money behind their idea. Govt cannot understand why private enterprise works, and this shoes it. Why not let them lose their shirts if it is such a stupid idea (hint, it's not and the folks talking down the economics are going to have massive egg on their face in 5 years). In private enterprise without the blocking power of the red tape its likely a number of solutions could be brought to bear. More market rate water pricing (hello alfalfa for china). Actual development of additional water sources (despite billions we get bupkis despite massive population growth). Instead, we are getting local residential water use regulations that are comically extreme, and on a % basis do almost nothing. And yes, the penalty rates for certain residential water use make that "extremely expensive" desalination plant look very very cheap. Literally every proposal is met by some govt or other do gooder saying it's not good enough and there is something better to do - meanwhile nothing happens. That is until enough stupidity collects in a room and we get multi-billion dollar expenditures on things like hydrogen with almost no natural market demand.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
The amount of paperwork and approvals even simple businesses require to get off the ground is mind boggling. Some make sense. Most, from Phoenix’s generic municipal business licenses to California’s foreign entity fees or New York’s entity publication requirement to Texas’s hairdresser licensing requirements or many HOAs’ aesthetic policies do not.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Have you researched why those regulations came about?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Have you researched why those regulations came about? Yes. Almost all of them stem from before the internet. Publication requirements prevented accidental trademark infringement and provided public notice. Similarly for foreign entity registration. Business licenses linked business addresses to the tax registry. Hairdressing because many barbers provided shaves, which involves a sanitary component.

daniel-s 4y ago

I think you diagnosed the problem, but not in the way that you think. We have huge price increases because the governments printed money for so long. Price increases were always predicted by free market economists. You don't make anyone wealthier by printing money. You don't build factories, make people smarter or increase resources. All it does is redistribute wealth to the first people that get to use the new money (banks and wealthy elites) and increase prices.

nostromo 4y ago
I'm well aware the cause of inflation is bad monetary policy. But now we have two options: control inflation by causing a severe downturn that will be painful, or control inflation with supply-side economics. We need to match supply and demand -- either by reducing demand with a recession, or by increasing the supply of goods and services. Increasing the supply side of the equation will be better for everyone.
lupire 4y ago
This isn't really relevant. Either formula buyers have more money and so they can afford formula, or they don't and so formula would not inflate as much as other products. Inflation only hurts when some buyers of a scarce good are benefiting more from money printing than others. This doesn't apply to consumer commodities.
pas 4y ago
> We have huge price increases because the governments printed money for so long. Not really. The unemployment checks did result in inflation, but the huge increase since November is because higher order supply chain issues (that started with the pandemic, ships waiting for unloading for many days, longshoreman on sick leave due to COVID, lack of empty containers, trucking industry problems, big swings of spending from services to products due to working from home, semiconductor shortages completely fucking up manufacturing schedules, then a few new waves of COVID in China, and so on). There's also a cascade effect that happens because if something is out of stock people will buy something else, so the price of that will go up initially, then it will also go out of stock, because the next batches are sitting in containers somewhere. > You don't make anyone wealthier by printing money. That's not how it works. Public spending has a fiscal multiplier, if that's greater than 1 then it does increase wealth. Public services, infrastructure, education, healthcare, all have high multipliers. Of course some have less than one, eg. giving tax credits to Amazon for moving their HQ, end of life hospitalization is arguably overdone in developed countries, a large chunk of military spending, spending public money on sports/stadiums, etc. On top of this printing money during a pandemic is extending credit in time, so the private sector doesn't start a contagious bankruptcy chain. ... Then after all this the Fed did wait too much to increase rates. (Mostly because the unemployment numbers were/are still high.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> 'it took over a year for American masks to come to market, just in time for them to not be needed, in large part because of regulation' What it really regulation that was at fault for masks being so delayed? The entire suplly chail for meltblown is missing. There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen than in all of North America combined. A basic masks that an average citizen had to wear to take the metro does not even come with any medical certification, what regulation was getting in the way, the need to file taxes?

lupire 4y ago
> There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen than in all of North America combined. This is because tariffs are not high enough to compensate for Chinese workers being paid below US minimum wage.
- kokken 4y ago
  Chinese tooling engineers are highly paid
  - gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
    https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/tooling-engineer/china https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/tooling-engineer/chi... Average pay is ¥230,664 or approximately $34,000 USD. That's probably pretty good at twice the average Chinese salary.

rilezg 4y ago

This is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of any externalities. We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations. I do not want 'America's entrepreneurs' to start producing infant formula without any safeguards. That is recipe for disaster.

Dracophoenix 4y ago
>We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations. So how is that not losing American manufacturing to regulation? If other countries have laxer and more favorable terms for businesses and those business are succeeding, that's sufficient evidence to demonstrate that regulation stifles manufacturing. You phrase your statement as though regulations are naturally occurring substances rather than the wishful, bureaucratic, and often violent mandates of government that they are. If the government has enough agency to compose such regulations, it should have enough agency to acknowledge and accept the resulting consequences when businesses vote with their feet and their wallets.
- rilezg 4y ago
  What I am saying is that in order for regulations to NOT cause businesses to 'vote with their feet and their wallets', we must also enact trade policies so that it is NOT cheaper for businesses to seek the laxest regulation (i.e. enforce tariffs for the difference in cost). If we do not care enough about the regulation to have a tariff, then the regulation should not exist. >You phrase your statement as though regulations are a naturally occurring substances rather than wishful and often violent mandates of government that they are. Lol, what is this even? I'll bite though. Regulations are naturally occurring insofar as any other human invention is naturally occurring. All laws are regulations on behavior, and all laws are wishful. There is still murder even though we have laws against shooting people. For me, at least, that is not a reason to do away with laws, but to each their own.

vegetablepotpie 4y ago

> and yes fossil fuels too It depends on your goals, if you want to absolutely destroy the global economy and wealth in 30 years for a short term shot in the arm, then sure.

bandyaboot 4y ago

Has there been a president more willing to burn regulations than Trump? If the delay happened despite him being in charge, perhaps the explanation is more complex than “it happened cuz regulation”?

specialist 4y ago
Yes. Presiden Carter. He got the ball rolling, no small feat. Also accomplished more than Reagan, who nonetheless got all the credit. President Clinton was also committed to regulatory reform, but I can't judge how his admin compares.