Regulatory Monstrosity

~~ Lau Vegys, Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing

The federal government is out of control.

If you’ve been with us for a while, that’s not exactly news to you. But if you ever needed a visual to show someone who doesn’t get it, here’s one. Take a look at this week’s chart below—it shows the relentless growth of federal regulations over the past 70+ years.

This monstrosity has ballooned from under 10,000 pages in 1950 to a staggering 190,260 pages by 2023. That’s thousands upon thousands of pages of rules, dictates, and mandates, crafted by unelected bureaucrats, cramming their tentacles into every nook and cranny of American life and business.

And the costs are staggering. According to a report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, federal regulations cost the U.S. economy $2.1 trillion per year. That’s an invisible tax of about $15,000 per household. And guess who shoulders this burden? That’s right—the American consumer, worker, and entrepreneur.

Now, if you remember, $2 trillion also happens to be the amount needed to balance the budget today—and it’s the same figure Musk himself claimed he could cut from federal spending through his DOGE initiative (the Department of Government Efficiency).

Of course, as I mentioned in a piece last month, DOGE isn’t an actual government department. It’s just a Federal Advisory Committee with no real power to act directly (except to provide recommendations and advice to the President and federal agencies).

So, as much as I’d love to see a smaller government, a reduced deficit, and a less expensive foreign policy (all desperately needed given the state of U.S. finances), I’m not holding my breath for DOGE to deliver these changes.

Still, whether it succeeds or not, the goal is undeniably noble.

Because this regulatory explosion you see above isn’t just about the economic toll. It’s about lost freedoms, crushed innovation, and the constant distortions it forces on the market. Every new page added to this monster is another blow to liberty, another barrier for hard-working Americans, and another chain on the invisible hand.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Lau Vegys

~~ Lau Vegys, Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing

The federal government is out of control.

Still, whether it succeeds or not, the goal is undeniably noble.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Lau Vegys

However, our demographics plateau between 2007 and 2037 and then decline as far as the eye can see, and more sharply from 2054 into 2071, using recent 2024 immigration-adjusted births.

The important point here: This huge difference is not because of substantially higher birth rates among Australia’s native-born citizens. It’s due to higher immigration as a percent of its population. Unlike Japan and many European countries, they have a lot of space to fill, but so does the U.S.

We need more immigrants today and into the future, not less, if we are going to avert a major decline for our kids and grandkids as Japan has already seen since the mid-1990s.

Election Day always brings politics into the foreground — but today, it’s impossible to separate politics, economics, and power.

The machinery of government itself is on display: the shutdown entering its fifth week, the Supreme Court debating executive overreach, and New Yorkers choosing between competing visions of what fairness means in an age of debt and division.

We apologize to readers who’ve signed up to learn more about Dollar 2.0 and the “upgrade” of the global financial system we believe commenced with the Payments Innovation Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve on October 21st.

That’s part of a larger story which we are following with intent.

Today, however, Swan Dive is overtly political because the economy has become political by design. Money, power and politics are all uniquely woven into today’s headlines.

Palantir isn’t just expensive – it’s the most expensive name in the market today.

Investors who own the stock should pay attention. Famed Big Short investor Michael Burry’s Q3 disclosure shows he owns put options on Palantir, which means he’s betting he’ll make a lot of money when PLTR corrects.

Investors still playing this should have a quick trigger, as bubbles always burst twice as fast as they build.

We have seen one index, sector or leading stock after the next go up and make dramatic new highs.

The latest one is AMD.

This leading AI stock is following Nvidia, making a dramatic last run straight up and will hit a top trend line around $275 as this chart shows. It’s already hit $243 last Monday.