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Beneath the Surface

Regulatory Monstrosity

Loading ...Lau Vegys

January 18, 2025 • 1 minute, 47 second read


Government Spendingregulation

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


From Permission to Possession

December 12, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

America has consistently reinvented itself in times of crisis. The founders survived monarchy. Lincoln survived disunion. We’ve survived bank panics, oil shocks, stagflation, and disco. We’ll survive deplatforming, too.

The Second American Revolution won’t be fought with muskets or manifestos. It won’t be fought with petty violence and street demonstrations. It will be written into code. And available to those who wish to take advantage of it.

Russell Kirk called the first American Revolution “a revolution not made, but prevented.” The second will be the same. We’re not tearing down the house — we’re going to rewire it in code.

The result may not be utopia. But it will be freedom you can bank on.

From Permission to Possession
Debanking the Outsider

December 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called stablecoins, including USDC, “a pillar of dollar strength,” estimating a $2 trillion market within five years. U.S. Treasuries back every coin.

Bessent’s formula even suggests that a broader, more efficient market for US dollars will help retain its best use case as the reserve currency of global finance… and, perhaps, help the current administration address the nation’s $37 trillion mountain of debt.

In trying to cancel a man, the establishment accidentally reinforced the dollar, and may add decades to its life as a useful currency.

Debanking the Outsider
The Second American Revolution Will Be Digitized

December 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, it’s worth recalling that our first Revolution wasn’t waged to destroy an order — it was fought to preserve one.

Political philosopher Russell Kirk called it “a revolution not made but prevented.” The colonists sought not chaos but continuity — the defense of their “chartered rights as Englishmen,” not the birth of an entirely new world. Kirk wrote:

“The American Revolution was a preventive movement, intended to preserve an old constitutional structure. The French Revolution meant the destruction of the fabric of society.”

The difference, Kirk argued, was moral. The American Revolution was rooted in ordered liberty; the French in ideological frenzy. The first produced a Constitution; the second, a guillotine.

Two and a half centuries later, the argument continues — only now, the battlefield is financial. Who controls access to money? Who defines legitimacy? Can a citizen’s ability to transact depend on their politics?

The Second American Revolution Will Be Digitized
The Money Printer Is Coming Back—And Trump Is Taking Over the Fed

December 9, 2025 • Lau Vegys

Trump and Powell are no buddies. They’ve been fighting over rate cuts all year—Trump demanding more, Powell holding back. Even after cutting twice, Trump called him “grossly incompetent” and said he’d “love to fire” him. The tension has been building for months.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

Trump has been dropping hints for weeks—saying on November 18, “I think I already know my choice,” and then doubling down last Sunday aboard Air Force One with, “I know who I am going to pick… we’ll be announcing it.”

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

The Money Printer Is Coming Back—And Trump Is Taking Over the Fed