It Would Be a Shame If Something Were to Happen
Antitrust is now a racket.
Trustbusters Give TV Sports Fans the Shaft
Holman Jenkins skewers contemporary antitrust law in the Journal.
He’s not wrong.
If you wanted to make yourself into someone capable of raw power, antitrust is the way to go.
‘Antitrust increasingly contributes nothing to solving real problems of either efficiency or justice. It merely serves as a wildcard uncertainty tax on companies trying to adapt to change. This was such a case.
‘I have annoyed certain readers by generalizing about the people nowadays attracted to antitrust law. Let me do so again. At best it’s a criminal waste of talent. At worst, it’s deeply worrisome that any law school graduate aspires to participate in an intellectually corrupt shakedown machine that exists primarily to keep itself employed.’
The Coming Year of AI Regulation in the States
More speculation about aggressive state moves on AI regulation.
Can the federal government pre-empt these? Will they?
‘In 2024, state lawmakers introduced hundreds of AI policy proposals. Only a small fraction passed, and of those, the vast majority were fairly anodyne, such as creating protections for malicious deepfakes or initiating state government committees to study different aspects of AI policy. Few constituted substantive new regulations. An AI transparency bill in California and a civil-rights-based bill in Colorado are notable exceptions.
‘In the coming year, expect to see far more major, preemptive AI regulatory proposals. These will look more like European Union regulations than the more modest US proposals that predominated in 2024.’
US CFTC chair to step down, flags urgent need for crypto regulation
Certainty on crypto regulation in the US would be a boon to domestic innovation in the space.
‘Benham told the FT that he was concerned about digital asset regulation, describing it as “insufficient” due to “a large swath of the digital asset space” being unregulated in the US.
‘As he prepares to leave office, Benham emphasized the need for robust oversight to address growing adoption demands and ensure market integrity.’
Breaking the Constitution Won’t Fix the Bureaucracy
The pearl-clutching in Scientific American about the incoming administration reaches for all the cliches in this one.
And yes, efficiency is a virtue, even in government. Scarcity is still a key part of the equation even when we’re talking about the public sector.
‘The nation’s founders enshrined the separation of powers precisely to counter monarchical tendencies more than two centuries ago. Yet presidentialism, advancing since Nixon’s era, now invites a constitutional referendum on the intentionally limited powers, in the name of reforming bureaucracy.’
DOGE Can't Just Trim Waste. It Has to Cut Government – A Lot.
The principal benefit of DOGE will not be felt in government. It will show up in the private sector.
‘We believe DOGE needs a broader and more fundamental mission: to question the very purpose of government programs and objectives. DOGE should force us as a society to reconsider if the government should be responsible for as much as it does today. Only by shrinking the number and scope of government programs will we get an efficient and effective state. Without reexamining the very purpose of government, we’d just be making an overloaded freight train run faster in the wrong direction.’
The risk of small modular reactors is much smaller than the kind of reactors that spooked the establishment in the movie Three Mile Island.
They should be everywhere.
‘The NRC should not be regulating these reactors. Small scale nuclear should be regulated like x-Ray machines or gas turbines not like billion dollar nuclear power plants, the current rule. Reasonable regulation will allow iterative innovation.’
What the hell is happening in the UK?
‘This is funny. As a proportion of the population, Britain has more civil servants than China. And while the Chinese bureaucracy is highly professional and extremely competent, the British equivalent promotes ideological claptrap and pushes a half bankrupt country into war.’
Judge Rules American Airlines Violated Retirement-Plan Duties by Encouraging ESG Investing
Pensioners cannot eat the good vibes they get from ESG investing. That’s relevant because the financial returns on ESG investments are lower than on mainstream ones. The difference is the non-pecuniary reward for virtue (or, is it for virtue signaling?).
Don’t use plan assets to do this kind of stuff. If some people want to do so, they can take their pension checks and place them with BlackRock in the future.
‘U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, said American breached its duty to employees because BlackRock BLK -3.09%decrease; red down pointing triangle, an asset manager the airline uses for its retirement funds, favored so-called ESG goals and based investment decisions on factors other than financial interests.’
Another parting Biden blow to American families: A war on water heaters
The hits just keep on coming here at WJOE. Bonus points for doing something that hits the working class and the poor in their apartments disproportionately harder.
‘In a final (we hope) slam of regular Americans, Team Biden’s green crusaders just targeted yet another common household appliance: gas-fired tankless water heaters.
‘Scheduled to kick in 2029, the new rule bans 40% of new water-heater models, forcing consumers to pay another $450 for electric alternatives that won’t work if the power goes out.’
Report: Some Massachusetts Residents Haven’t Moved to New Hampshire Yet
Kelly Ayotte came to play. She wants to take enrich New Hampshire.
That’s the great thing about the US. You can get real competition between states and even localities. It’s one continuous set of economic experiments.
‘You heard me talk a lot about Massachusetts on the campaign trail, and the reason I did is because it is a cautionary tale. Look at the out-of-control spending, tax hikes, illegal immigrant crisis, people and businesses leaving in droves — what is normal today in Massachusetts wasn’t always this way.
‘Year after year, their model of higher taxes and more government has made it harder to run a small business and harder for families to make ends meet.
‘On the other hand, over that same period, New Hampshire has gotten stronger. But only because of our leadership, our policies, and our commitment to taxpayers.
‘To the people of Massachusetts, our Bay State neighbors, I want you to know we love that you visit our communities, shop at our businesses, and enjoy our great outdoors. To the businesses of Massachusetts, we’d love to have you bring your talents to the Granite State. Reach out to us – we’re happy to show you why it’s better here.
‘To our friends across our northern border in Canada, the same goes for you. We’ll welcome your business with open arms to the Granite State and especially to our North Country, and your bottom line will benefit if you come here.’
State Department Defies Congress, Revives Infamous Censorship Office in Absurd Prank
Congress tells an agency to stop doing business? No problem. Just re-open under a different name.
‘However, I skipped the touchdown celebration after the closure of one of the more notorious bureaucratic characters in the Twitter Files, because I feared exactly what since took place. Just after the New Year, on January 2nd, Gabe reported in the Washington Examiner that as many as 51 GEC employees and tens of millions of dollars were moving in an effort to “realign” the office to a “hub” under a new name. The former GEC would be called the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, or R/FIMI, and report to the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy. The $29.4 million routed to the new “hub” would be “roughly the amount of base funds the GEC currently uses to fund counter-FIMI initiatives through grants and contracts,” a non-public letter dated December 6th and sent to Congress read.’