When Pigs Fly
Closest Point of Approach is about helping decision makers predict bureaucratic action. The more of these cases we see, the better our pattern recognition becomes.
News from the frontlines.
EU leaders agree to cut down single market bureaucracy by 25%
How bad are things in Europe when they want to cut bureaucracy by this much?
“European leaders including Prime Minister Robert Abela have comes to terms on an agreement to reduce bureaucracy related to the single market by 25 per cent, the government said in a statement Thursday,’
“They also agreed on the need for a competitiveness pact that continues to develop to provide businesses with opportunities to operate more sustainably and to address modern needs, such as digitalization and green initiatives.”
Google confirms more job cuts as part of company reorganisation
One suspects that these large tech companies have multiple “redundant” employees for political cover. If the tech market is rolling over, or at least digesting the froth of recent years, then we should expect to see more of this reduction-in-force activity.
“To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.
“Through this, we’re simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.”
AGAINST ADVICE, FAA RETURNS AIRMAN STANDARDS TO REGULATION
We’ve said this before: bureaucracy slows things down. On purpose.
It’s an interesting question. How can we optimize the regulation of innovation?
Here the FAA decided to freeze the standards for certifying pilots in the regulations, implicitly assuming no changes are likely in the near future, given the difficulty in amending them. This reverses the prior approach.
“While the FAA began moving away from codification of practical test and certification standards in regulation in 1997, the final rule published April 1 effectively turns back the clock, incorporating (by reference) dozens of certification standards for pilots, mechanics, and others into a single Part 61 regulation, exactly the course of action that many sought to avoid, including AOPA and fellow members of an FAA working group created to advise the agency on the ongoing development of certification standards. The rule was first proposed in 2022, following well over a decade of work by FAA and industry on modernizing the certification standards that the new rule now incorporates.
“In formal comments submitted February 10, 2023, signed by AOPA and fellow members of the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee's Airman Certification Standards Working Group, members voiced disappointment that many of the changes proposed by the working group had not been incorporated in the rulemaking proposal, and that the documents poised to become regulations that can be changed only through a formal rulemaking process were already outdated.”
JOHN STOSSEL: Biden’s Bureaucrats Will Put A Kill Switch In Your Car
It will be interesting to see the consequences of the kill switch and of the proposed speed governor in California that would prevent exceeding the speed limit, even temporarily, say in passing. By consequences, I mean unintended, iatrogenic consequences.
“A USA Today “fact check” told readers, don’t worry, “There’s no kill switch in Biden’s bill.”
““They didn’t read it, because it’s there!” says automotive engineer and former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix in my new video. The clause is buried under Section 24220 of the law.
“USA Today’s “fact” check didn’t lie, exactly. It acknowledged that the law requires “new cars to have technology that identifies if a driver is impaired and prevents operation.” Apparently, they just didn’t like the term “kill switch.””
Funding Leftism, Making Power Grabs: The Biden Administration’s Bureaucratic Radicalism
With bureaucracy, the best way to grow is to, as they say, boil the frog. Increase your impact slowly, lest anyone notice. Of course, if nobody’s really paying attention, you can move faster. Here, Heritage seems to suggest that the frog is ready to leap from the pot as an impatient cook tries to speed up the process of turning everything into a politicized bureaucracy.
But Heritage would say that, wouldn’t they?
“The Biden Administration has used executive orders, regulatory actions, and administrative decisions to steer large volumes of taxpayer-funded resources to radical ideological causes and to impose greater federal control over the nation and economy. Although Congress has enabled some of these actions by broadly delegating authority to the executive branch, the Biden Administration has also circumvented or outright violated federal laws in pursuit of its agenda. While Congress should assert itself more forcefully against the Biden Administration’s overreach, it is equally important that Congress seek lasting reforms that would rein in both the power and discretion of executive agencies. Refocusing the federal government on its core duties would reduce the number of avenues for any Administration to overstep its bounds.”
Medicare’s Bureaucracy vs. Doctors
Badges? Badges? I don’t need no stinking badges.
A key issue with bureaucracy is that it is arbitrary in its (often opaque) decision-making.
“We’ve told you about the organ transplant patients whose Medicare coverage was restricted for blood tests that pick up early signs of organ rejection. It turns out the decision to limit the tests contradicted the recommendations of the government’s own panel of medical experts.”