I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Matt Levine (whose daily email is excellent):

A theory of regulation.

I am working on a tentative theory of regulation. It goes like this:

1. There are two kinds of regulations: custom regulations and bulk regulations.
2. A custom regulation is designed to accomplish a particular goal. You want people to do something, so you write a rule mandating that they do it and punishing them if they don't. For instance, if you want U.S. companies to keep jobs in the U.S., you might write a rule to mandate that, and to "impose a 'very major' border tax on companies that move jobs outside the U.S." That is an example of a custom regulation, and it is good because it keeps jobs in the U.S.
3. Bulk regulations are the kind that you buy by the yard, ones that you measure by quantity rather than purpose. They don't have a purpose, really; they are just generic "red tape." These are the regulations that presidents frequently announce they will cut in half, or freeze with an executive order. They're the regulations that come not from a reasoned desire to achieve a particular goal, but from a pure impulse to regulate. Bulk regulations are bad because they prevent businesses from doing business-y things without accomplishing anything good.
4. All regulations are custom regulations.
5. All discussion of "regulation" is about bulk regulations, which do not exist.