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U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

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386 points z991 | 1 comments | 23 Jun 25 23:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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pixl97 ◴[24 Jun 25 00:46 UTC] No.44361760[source]▶
Save lives?: X

Increase safety?: X

Make more money?: YES

The USCSB makes life safer for everyone in this country, especially people that work around potentially dangerous chemicals and pressurized equipment.

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api ◴[24 Jun 25 01:00 UTC] No.44361855[source]▶
I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't actually save any money or make anyone much more money. It's just a result of mindlessly fetishizing the past and misattributing past periods of rapid industrial growth to lack of regulation. The real cause was rapid population growth at the time, war, and extremely rapid adoption of bedrock industrial age technologies like electricity.

Today we have a fully deployed modern infrastructure and slow to negative population growth. Cutting regulation won't change that.

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qmatch ◴[24 Jun 25 01:10 UTC] No.44361906[source]▶
How are so confident in causality here?
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api ◴[24 Jun 25 01:14 UTC] No.44361933{3}[source]▶
The population thing is pretty elementary. If population is flat to declining, then growth is demand constrained.

There are some areas where you could uncap growth by cutting regulation, but they're not this. The #1 one I'm aware of is housing construction in high cost metros.

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qmatch ◴[24 Jun 25 01:22 UTC] No.44361977{4}[source]▶
I see your point, but not totally buying it. The US innovates for a global population, one that’s still growing.

The best way to infer causality is through experimentation. If regulation does go away, we’ll measure and learn if it actually worked.

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1. mikem170 ◴[24 Jun 25 03:26 UTC] No.44362623{5}[source]▶
Reagan cut regulation, and manufacturing still left, quick as ever.

I assume that is due to larger trends. Population growth has slowed considerably and there's more competition than ever. Worldwide fertility rates have dropped from 4.7 to 2.3 in the last 75 years, and in that time the U.S. share of world GDP dropped from about 50% to 25%.

My two cents: We may be already be in uncharted economic territory with regards to shrinking workforces, retirees, pollution, etc. How much of our economy is dependent on growth? We may find out. Places like Japan, Korea and Europe are leading the way. Ponzi schemes won't work forever. The world is getting smaller and older. And evening out. There's less room for arbitrage. Innovation is coming from all directions. Technology can still increase productivity. But it could also put masses of people out of work, leaving not enough demand for the latest and greatest. That, and a pie that is no longer growing, could cause a lot of social friction.