May 15, 2012--Government Regulations

From Bloomberg News:

President Barack Obama's “tsunami” of new government regulations looks more like a summer swell. Obama’s White House has approved fewer regulations than his predecessor George W. Bush at this same point in their tenures, and the estimated costs of those rules haven’t reached the annual peak set in fiscal 1992 under Bush’s father, according to government data reviewed by Bloomberg News.  

The average annual cost to businesses under Obama is higher than under his predecessors, the Bloomberg review shows. The increase is estimated to total as little as $100 million or as much as $4.1 billion, or at most three one-hundredths of a percent of the total economy.

There has been, though, a tsunami of criticism of Obama's regulations policies. It is claimed by political opponents that it is because of these liberal, anti-business policies that the economy is stalled.

It may be closer to the truth that the economy in certain sectors is stalled because of shenanigans such as those recently revealed by JPMorgan Chase. Investment abuses that could in fact have been prevented with the proper kind of, sorry, regulations. The Volcker Rule, if passed by Congress, would have prevented that.

But what is being prevented is the passage of the Volcker Rule itself thanks in large measure to the heavy-handed lobbying of JPMorgan's ever-arrogant CEO, Jamie Dimon.