Flippin' Sweet Gear

CHEVRON DOMINANCE Technology is about to accelerate. Because Chevron deference is over. And regulators can't just make up laws anymore. So, countless new startups just became feasible. This is often spoken about in the abstract, so let's do three examples and two visuals. THREE EXAMPLES 1) Genomics. Did Congress explicitly give FDA authority to regulate genetic tests in a bill like Kefauver-Harris (1962) or PDUFA (1992)? No, it did not. But in the early 2010s, FDA attacked 23andMe and forced them to take personal genomic tests offline. Implicitly, this was under Chevron. 2) Nuclear power. Did Congress explicitly give EPA and NRC the authority to implement ALARA? No, it did not. But these agencies came up with this "as low as reasonably achievable" standard, forcing nuclear energy to become as expensive as other energy sources by spending all the cost-savings on "safety." Implicitly, this was under Chevron too. 3) Cryptocurrency. You guessed it. Did Congress explicitly give the SEC authority to regulate crypto? No, it did not. Cryptocurrencies didn't exist when the 1933 and 1934 acts were written. However, the SEC says it has regulatory authority over crypto, even when Congress is deliberating on bills to the contrary. Implicitly, that claim of SEC authority too was under Chevron. In other words: if a regulator can't point to the law that gives them the power, they may not have the power. And you might be able to win in a court of law. So! For technology, the overruling of Chevron could literally reopen innovation in the physical world. This is on par with the 1991 opening of the Internet to commercial traffic. It deprecates the 20th century regulatory state. All the safety theater and security theater that they optimize for sounding good while actually being bad now has to face judicial scrutiny. TWO VISUALS How to visualize something as abstract as Chevron reversal? Well, Chevron is the company on which the 1984 Chevron deference case is actually based. And its logo had the arrows pointed down. But now that Chevron has been reversed, we're headed up. And that's one way to visualize what reversal means: from Chevron deference to Chevron dominance. Because rule-of-law now dominates the lawless regulatory state. If the regulator isn't specifically authorized by statute, they can't invent some regulation to stop your innovation. But there's a second way to visualize the reversal of Chevron: regulators just got disarmed, in the most literal sense. Because ultimately a regulation is a threat of state force. If you disobey one of a regulator's made up rules, they eventually get a cop to point a gun at you, implicitly or sometimes very explicitly. ^ The photo above is from the 2010 FDA raid on Rawesome Foods for selling raw milk to club members that consciously opted in to eating and drinking foods of their own choice. This may have also been done under Chevron deference because FDA only has the right to regulate interstate commerce, and not commerce within one state (which is all that Rawesome was apparently doing at that time). To be clear, I don't have a position on raw milk other than I do think people should be able to choose their own foods. In their lawsuit against the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund, FDA strongly disagreed, contending that "there is no generalized right to bodily and physical health" and you "do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” These are real quotes from the now-defanged regulators; see the PDF link below. Anyway — now you get a sense of how big a deal the Chevron reversal is, and how out of control regulators can get. The Chevron reversal strips regulators of the ability to make up random rules. It calls all their existing made-up rules into question. And it gives you the power to ask where in the law it says they can make up some new rule. You know that saying — the only way they can stop you is to shoot you? Well, now they can't shoot you as easily. So we're going from Chevron deference to Chevron dominance. I can already feel the T-levels across tech increasing.

This will be harmful and deadly.

Homicide rates across the nation are DOWN. The US just saw its biggest annual drop on record. Bets on if Fox News runs this graphic?

Dear MAGA, You like to say that “everything was better” under Trump, and so I want to know, what was it that was that was better? Job gains? Nope. Before the pandemic, Trump was averaging 176,000 jobs a month over 3 years. Biden’s monthly average is 400,000 over the same span. Unemployment? Nope. The lowest under Trump was 3.5%. Biden got it down to 3.4%. In fact, unemployment rates for Hispanic workers, Black women & people with disabilities have all hit record lows under Biden’s watch.
The Black unemployment rate, which Trump likes to boast about, reached an all-time low during the Biden era earlier this year. The GDP? Nope. Trump saw a 14 percent uptick during his term compared to about 22 percent since Biden took office. Were your bridges & roads safer while Trump promised it was “infrastructure week” over and over, or when Biden finally passed the bipartisan bill? Was your insulin less expensive before Biden forced big pharma to lower their prices? Sure, gas prices were lower during the worst of the pandemic, inflation spiked & prices for goods soared all over the world as we came out of it, but after his steady hand, inflation is falling & gas prices have lowered. The price of goods are still disproportionately high thanks to corporate greed & already rich CEOs getting even richer. In fact, the only people who truly benefitted under Trump were the billionaires. The collective fortune of America’s 748 billionaires topped $5 trillion in September 2023, a near record high, and up an astounding $2.2 trillion (77%) since enactment of Trump’s national debt-inflating tax cuts. Are you a billionaire? Then yes, things were better under Trump. Otherwise, you’ll have to tell me exactly what you mean when you make that claim. The world wasn’t “more peaceful”, the country wasn’t more “united”, the economy wasn’t stronger, and the $7.8 trillion your guy saddled us with for generations hasn’t “made us great again.” Or is it that when you say “better” you mean that the occupant of the Oval Office openly hated the same people you hate. And that is all you think you need. It doesn’t fill your gas tank or put food on your table, it doesn’t make us safer or stronger. But it “feels” better.” Isn’t that right?