Eight Years of Fundamental Transformation and Some Thoughts

I've heard a couple of things about the Trump administration that I can't verify, but that are being reported.  The first is that at the stroke of noon today, the White House web pages dealing with climate change went away.  The second is that he has asked for (ordered?) a ban on new regulations.  I find both of these tremendously encouraging. 

A quick check over at Regulations.gov shows that in the last 90 days a total of 6313 regulations have been posted.  As a rule of thumb, that's a little higher than typical, but only about 5% high.  Based on looking at that site at random times since the end of 2011, I believe the typical number is about 6000 in 90 days. 

Let's play with numbers a little. In 8 years, there were 32 three month periods (that's roughly 90 days). That's 192,000 regulations that went through the regulations.gov website and their processes.  If you read the website, you'll see that not everything they handle is strictly a new regulation in the sense you're thinking of.  Many are tweaks to existing programs and regulations, but every one of them still costs money.  For example, there's currently a pair of regulations open for comment that address "standards grades for walnuts and shelled walnuts" and another for "standards for grades for onions and frozen onions".  Certainly companies involved in the walnut or onion markets are going to care about these a lot, but why is the Fed.gov involved? 

Moving on, today is a good day to do a retrospective of the greatest gun salesman in history, EX president Obama.  Through last October, about 12 weeks ago. 

The increasing trend in sales has been going on for as long as this dataset, since '04, but the spikes during the Obama years are pretty amazing.  You see things like the lowest sales month in 2012 was higher than the biggest sales spike through 2008.  

Finally, I have to admit that Obama was among the things that changed me.  It's a truism that personal growth tends to happen during times when we're under duress, not when we're comfortable.  If life is a series of mountain and valley experiences, the growth happens in the valleys not on the peaks.   Eight years ago was essentially when Mrs. Graybeard and I got involved in shooting sports.  When we "woke up".  I started this blog just under seven years ago.  I had started to educate myself on monetary policies and many other regular topics here long before Obama; actually in the early years of the W.  Obama just brought the pressure of attacking and transforming everything I thought I knew that was right.  I believe that Glenn Beck says something similar, saying "Obama made me a better man".  With that I disagree.  To the extent that I'm a better man, Obama didn't build that; I did.  I made myself a better man in response to Obama.  In much the same way that an oyster responds to a grain of sand. 

Yo!  Is dat poetic enough for youze?