EL LUCRO MENGUANTE que supone la regulación estatal y la 'magia del interés compuesto':

Suppose the U.S. economy, since 1949, were giving up 2% extra growth per year because of bad economic policy. Or, as Ramsey might say, because Presidents, legislators and unelected regulators were born stupid or try their best to act that way.

Now, 2% a year doesn’t sound like much. Most of us could spend 98% of our budget next year without too much pain. The quip about compound interest is noteworthy only because it would take a genius like Einstein to observe something so profoundly simple yet subtly opaque.

But run the numbers yourself–and prepare for a shock. If the U.S. economy had grown an extra 2% per year since 1949, 2014′s GDP would be about $58 trillion, not $17 trillion. So says a study called “Federal Regulation and Aggregate Economic Growth,” published in 2013 by the Journal of Economic Growth. More than taxes, it’s been runaway federal regulation that’s crimped U.S. growth by the year and utterly smashed it over two generations.

Not all regulation is bad. Mandatory seat belts have helped cut traffic fatalities by 51% on a population-adjusted basis since 1949. Far fewer people are now killed or maimed in industrial accidents. The air in downtown Los Angeles is breathable again. Would this have happened without federal regulation? Yes, but likely not as fast.

So let’s, for the sake of argument, posit that some regulation has been good for us, while many other regs have only hurt economic growth. Let’s also argue that sensible regulation, combined with the retirement of outdated regulation, could have brought about the same improvements to health and safety–but at a cost of 1% potential growth per year, not 2%. Where would the U.S. economy be today?

–The 2014 GDP would be $32 trillion, not $17 trillion.
–Per capita income would be $101,000, not $54,000.
–Per capita wealth would be $480,000, not $260,000. It would probably be higher than that, since savings rates might be higher.
–The U.S. would have no federal, state or municipal debts or deficits.
–Pensions would be solid. So would Social Security[1].
–The trend of new entrants to The Forbes 400 would not favor entrepreneurs in software, the Internet and financial services but would be more broadly distributed across all industries. Electronic bits–money and software–are less prone to regulation than such physical things as factories, transportation, etc.
–Faster, quieter successors to the supersonic Concorde? Cheap, safe nuclear power? Cancer-curing drugs for small populations? Bullet trains financed by private investors? Yes!
–The U.S. would have the resources to fight the multiplicity of threats from abroad, from ISIS to hackers.

Am I guilty of positing ideal outcomes from all that extra wealth? Perhaps. Still, it would be wonderful to have that extra wealth in people’s pockets and in government treasuries. What a missed opportunity!