Abacab
There needs to be more deregulation in the DOGE mix.
Emboldened by Trump, A.I. Companies Lobby for Fewer Rules
The AI companies have switched from “we need to regulate the bejeesus out of AI” to “leave us alone, it’s a strategic priority.”
Is it because of Trump? Maybe. The mind-reading aces at the New York Times make the case.
There may be some truth to that, but it’s indirect, I suspect.
It might be because of one word: “DeepSeek.”
The Chinese are coming on strong in AI. There are potent national defense implications of this.
If it really is a Sputnik moment, you don’t stifle innovation with rules made by Poindexters who cannot predict the future but who know that they need to get their fingers in the pie.
‘But since President Trump’s election, tech leaders and their companies have changed their tune, and in some cases reversed course, with bold requests of government to stay out of their way, in what has become the most forceful push to advance their products.
‘In recent weeks, Meta, Google, OpenAI and others have asked the Trump administration to block state A.I. laws and to declare that it is legal for them to use copyrighted material to train their A.I. models. They are also lobbying to use federal data to develop the technology, as well as for easier access to energy sources for their computing demands. And they have asked for tax breaks, grants and other incentives.
‘The shift has been enabled by Mr. Trump, who has declared that A.I. is the nation’s most valuable weapon to outpace China in advanced technologies.’
Report: Treasury Department Seeks More Control Over FDIC and OCC
Coordination of financial regulation by the Treasury would challenge Federal Reserve regulators.
The truth is that financial regulation in the US is a Gordian Knot of entangled agencies.
‘The Treasury Department is reportedly drafting recommendations that would streamline other banking regulators and give the department more control over them.
‘Treasury began drafting these regulations after concluding that the regulators — the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — probably cannot be merged without congressional approval, Semafor reported Monday (March 24), citing unnamed sources.’
Bowman’s Past Remarks Signal ‘Tailored’ Bank Supervision Priorities at the Fed
Financial regulation is ripe for transformation. More is not better.
‘In this and other speeches, she has advocated for “regulatory tailoring,” a shift from the movement after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure where “we saw a wide range of regulatory proposals. These have included substantial increases in bank capital requirements and pushing down global systemically important bank and large bank requirements to much smaller firms.”
‘Those proposals have moved beyond the scope of the actual problems identified in the wake of the SVB upheaval.
‘“Tailoring can help ensure regulators focus on the most critical risks over time and avoid the over-allocation of resources or imposition of unnecessary costs on the banking system,” Bowman said in the January speech.
‘The sweeping capital requirements could lead to “substantial industry consolidation,” she said, and a more transparent process will prove “especially important as digital assets and artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the financial system.”’
Democrats Propose More Bad Bitcoin And Crypto Regulation
Read to the bottom of this snippet.
Let’s just say that having New York State lead on regulation may not be the best thing.
‘New York State requires that all virtual currency businesses that operate in the state obtain a BitLicense.
‘At face value, obtaining a license to operate a business seems harmless enough. But once you learn that it takes months to years to complete all of the paperwork and to jump through all of the hoops required to obtain one and that it costs upward of $100,000 to go through this process, you quickly see why so many established companies in the space — never mind the early-stage start-ups — don’t even start the process.
‘Because of the BitLicense, New York State residents cannot use reputable platforms like Strike, River, Swan, and Kraken. Nor can they use Lightning on CashApp or the fiat-to-bitcoin exchange on Fold. This is only to name a few of the Bitcoin/crypto products and services that we can’t use because of red tape.
‘But what’s perhaps more of a slap in the face is that when you attempt to use some of these platforms as a New York State resident, you’re presented with messages such as “This exchange doesn’t serve residents of jurisdictions including New York State, Iran, Syria and North Korea.” [emphasis added]’
Trump and Congress Have a Right and a Duty To Kill the Department of Education
The Department of Education is a bureaucratic cancer. The President has a duty “not to enforce statutes that the president has determined in good faith to violate the Constitution,” per constitutional law scholar Sai Prakash. Even if the Supreme Court has upheld them wrongly.
The Constitution does not grant the federal government powers over education. Most of its activities except for things like ensuring equal protection are unconstitutional. Arguably.
‘In truth, the federal Department of Education, while representing around 4 percent of federal spending, provides only a fraction of the funding for public schools; 92 percent of the money comes from states and localities. That said, federal bureaucrats still have an enormous impact because "the federal government uses a complex system of funding mechanisms, policy directives, and the soft but considerable power of the presidential bully pulpit to shape what, how, and where students learn," as Brendan Pelsue wrote in 2017 for the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Ed. Magazine.
‘That is, the federal Department of Education produces mostly red tape, nudges, and bureaucrats, and it encourages further bureaucracy at the state and local level to ensure compliance. The results are almost uniformly unsatisfactory. Students are fleeing public schools in favor of alternatives including private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling.’
Trump Is Dismantling the Education Department—With or Without Congress
We’re gonna get it on ‘cuz we don’t get along. This seems to be the strategy.
‘More lawsuits could follow. Last week, Trump said that the administration would move “special needs” programs to the Department of Health and Human Services and the student-loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration. The administration hasn’t released details on moving these programs or specific plans to work with Congress to do so.’
Deregulation has reduced inflation and increased economic growth in Argentina.
When do we start to see more wholesale deregulation here? Is DOGE in the US too preoccupied with cost cutting? Does DOGE need more staff?
‘The end of Argentina’s extensive rent controls has resulted in a tripling of the supply of rental apartments in Buenos Aires and a 30 percent drop in price.
The new open-skies policy and the permission for small airplane owners to provide transportation services within Argentina has led to an increase in the number of airline services and routes operating within (and to and from) the country.
Permitting Starlink and other companies to provide satellite internet services has given connectivity to large swaths of Argentina that had no such connection previously. Anecdotal evidence from a town in the remote northwestern province of Jujuy implies a 90 percent drop in the price of connectivity.
The government repealed the “Buy Argentina” law similar to “Buy American” laws, and it repealed laws that required stores to stock their shelves according to specific rules governing which products, by which companies and which nationalities, could be displayed in which order and in which proportions.
Over-the-counter medicines can now be sold not just by pharmacies but by other businesses as well. This has resulted in online sales and price drops.
The elimination of an import-licensing scheme has led to a20 percent drop in the price of clothing items and a 35 percent drop in the price of home appliances.
The government ended the requirement that public employees purchase flights on the more expensive state airline and that other airlines cannot park their airplanes overnight at one of the main airports in Buenos Aires.
In January, Sturzenegger announced a “revolutionary deregulation” of the export and import of food. All food that has been certified by countries with high sanitary standards can now be imported without further approval from, or registration with, the Argentine state. Food exports must now comply only with the regulations of the destination country and are unencumbered by domestic regulations.’
Deregulation in Argentina: Milei Takes “Deep Chainsaw” to Bureaucracy and Red Tape
Milei’s success highlights the importance of deregulation, even as cost cutting grabs all the headlines.
‘The success that Milei’s economic stabilization has had so far is now widely acknowledged. The president took an economy from crisis to recovery much faster than most people expected: Growth returned in the second half of 2024, wages have increased, and the poverty rate, after having initially risen, has fallen below the 40 percent range that the previous government left as part of its legacy.
How much Milei has been deregulating, however, and the role that deregulation plays in Argentina’s success, is less widely appreciated—yet it is every bit as important as cutting spending. To understand why, it helps to know something about what makes Argentina’s politics different from that of most countries.’
Having said all that about the mix of DOGE work between cost-cutting and deregulation, stories like this make cost-cutting all the more compelling.
‘JUST IN: Elon Musk says children under 11 years old were taking out SBA loans totaling $330 million. "I think the youngest was a nine-month-year-old who got a $100,000 loan." "That's a very precocious baby we're talking about here."’
AI Can Be a Force for Deregulation
Ohio used AI to reduce its regulatory words by a third.
‘The reform allowed state agencies to use the AI tool RegExplorer to flag pieces of the code that were duplicative, outdated or so silly that only government would have preserved them. We found thousands of pages of rules governing lottery games that were no longer played. The regulatory wires had gotten crossed in ways that made Ohio building codes far more complicated than in other states. Duplicative language made it hard to discern differences between state building and fire codes and national standards.
‘We identified rules that needlessly forced people to conduct their government business in person or by mail. We estimated the upside of correcting the code’s outdated provisions would save 58,000 state-employee man-hours and $44 million over 10 years. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to spend all day waiting in line to untangle red tape.
‘After five years, Ohio is on track to reduce its regulatory code by about a third. That’s five million unnecessary words. Now it’s easier for people and businesses to comply with the law. The state even made it simpler, cheaper and more secure for people to communicate with the Department of Taxation without hiring new agents.’