[gcanyon]

I've only read maybe 30 pages of the book, but I think the article misses the point (I hope) the book is making: there are regulations that serve a purpose, and regulations that don't, and we can, to at least some extent, tell the difference based on the regulations themselves or their impact on past projects.

If that's true, then we can shed regulations, speed the process of government, and make it more effective at actually doing things.

It might be difficult to tell which regulations are causing problems, or which are needless, or maybe that's not the point of the book; but criticizing the book for not pre-identifying exactly which regulations need to end seems overly demanding: we first need to agree that there are needless regulations that slow progress. If the book helps us reach that conclusion, it's served a purpose.

Also, as a small nit: "even a positive-sum world contains winners and losers." That needs cites I think. I'm sure there's someone in the U.S. who is worse off than a 15th century peasant, but there are precious few of them, too few to use that phrase to describe them.

[hackeraccount]

I've got the book on my reader but haven't started it yet.

I've heard a few interviews though with the authors and while I'd like to see their ideas succeed I am suspicious of the idea that we can just get rid of the regulations that don't work.

All regulations work. There's a reason they get codified; they're working for someone. People who own property are voting for things not to change. It's not that they mistakenly think that building more housing is against their interest - it is against their interest.

Look at housing prices in Texas and California. Which would rather own a house in? In California it's going to be expensive and get more expensive. There are no can't miss investments but a house in CA. is pretty close. Now if you're buying a house Texas might be a better bet but owners are the ones running the regulatory environment.

[jaypinho]

I think you'd get near-universal agreement that some regulations somewhere are ineffective and/or counterproductive. If that's all the book is attempting to achieve, it's an extremely modest goal IMO.

The problem is getting that same level of agreement about specific regulations - or, failing that, making a strong case for a specific reason why a regulation that many people think is necessary and good is actually bad. But Klein and Thompson, for the most part, avoid doing this.

[tptacek]

The book identifies a problem that you yourself agree with: the Democratic coalition can't build anything, can't satisfy the needs of its constituents, is losing those constituents to Republican states that can, and is losing the faith of the electorate. It also offers a diagnosis (or rather, a set of them): the unintended consequences of localism, a legislative and regulatory system that oriented more than checking boxes with every faction of the coalition than having coherent goals like "house people" or "deploy clean energy", and an unwillingness of the coalition to revisit the decisions of previous generations in light of current challenges.

Do you think any of these diagnoses are wrong? Or are you just bored by them?

[Paradigm2020]

He's just asking what are the specific proposals that should be enacted... That's it... Like know that you've read the book which exact law has to be passed / destroyed to increase housing supply... Without causing mass civil unrest... Which law has to be passed to get the high speed rail build in the next 3 years... Without destroying nature / being routed through poor people's home under eminent domain and not through some rich ass hole with the right connections...

He's coming at if from his pov that he's aware of the problem but is looking for solutions... Which the author's don't give...

The problem is that human made laws deal with... Human beings... And hence with game theory...

So the intent of the law != Outcome of the law.

If you just throw away the law without considering Chesterton's fence etc you are probably throwing away the baby with the bathwater... And to fix it perfectly is basically impossible as it always is in complex matters... (if it was possible ie there wouldn't be accountants who can save millions/billions for cooperations...)

The book is describing problems that a lot of people, especially on this forum, are well aware off. However instead of saying - we need to do this, or even proposing a wiki/forum/whatever to specifically fix all those individual problems/ laws it just repeats what a lot of people are already aware off in a long spun out book.

Best other book I can think of that is similar in a way (and a best seller) is thinking fast and slow with the end conclusion being ~~~ eeeuhm there is no actual way to fix your thinking but hey maybe being aware off the 2 systems might help even though we've said this whole time that it doesn't really work.

So yeah, what specific solutions have you found in this book? If you agree that there aren't any... Maybe you just were looking for A and got A and he was hoping to get B and only got A ?

He's saying it's a problem book instead of a solution book and you are repeating but yes it's a great problem book... Why does there need to be a solution book. So maybe the marketing is at fault ?

(Anyway written at night on a phone so sorry for the badly written reply, I just noticed how you repeated more or less the same message and felt like communication was not being achieved despite lots of words being exchanged - I will clarify with a clearer head tomorrow to any reply - Hanoi time zone)

[tptacek]

That's not the point of the book.