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Liberals like to pretend that regulations don't have a cost. The truth is that we are all vastly poorer as a result of government regulation. The negative effects of social programs like Social Security and Medicare have been even greater.
How Awesome Would the U.S. Economy Be If It Were Set Free from Massive Government Regulations
How Awesome Would the U.S. Economy Be If It Were Set Free from Massive Government Regulations
Imagine if the U.S.’s economy had grown an extra 1% every year since 1949 as a result from less strangulating federal regulation.
This is the thesis for a recent Forbes article by Rich Karlgaard, the magazine’s publisher and head writer. Using the concept of compound interest, along with an assertion that runaway federal tinkering and silly regulations have had a massive impact on the country’s economic growth over the decades, he gives a handful of answers to the question:
“Where would the U.S. economy be today without massive federal regulation?”
Here’s what he came up with:
This is the thesis for a recent Forbes article by Rich Karlgaard, the magazine’s publisher and head writer. Using the concept of compound interest, along with an assertion that runaway federal tinkering and silly regulations have had a massive impact on the country’s economic growth over the decades, he gives a handful of answers to the question:
“Where would the U.S. economy be today without massive federal regulation?”
Here’s what he came up with:
- The 2014 GDP would be $32 trillion, not $17 trillion.
- Per capita income would be $101,000, not $54,000.
- Per capita wealth would be $480,000, not $260,000. It would probably be higher than that, since savings rates might be higher.
- The U.S. would have no federal, state or municipal debts or deficits.
- Pensions would be solid. So would Social Security.
- The trend of new entrants to The Forbes 400 would not favor entrepreneurs in software, the Internet and financial services but would be more broadly distributed across all industries. Electronic bits–money and software–are less prone to regulation than such physical things as factories, transportation, etc.
- Faster, quieter successors to the supersonic Concorde? Cheap, safe nuclear power? Cancer-curing drugs for small populations? Bullet trains financed by private investors? Yes!
- The U.S. would have the resources to fight the multiplicity of threats from abroad, from ISIS to hackers.
