I don’t see how they were ridiculous on the face it. The economy during that regulatory period grew into a huge juggernaut.

Most of the R&D that laid the future of the world happened during that period. The middle class grew to its largest portion during that period.

I don’t think the economy was hamstrung in the least

Rose colored glasses.

The classic example is airline deregulation which happened under Carter. The real cost of flights is way, way down since then. But this doesn't stop people from complaining about how "flying is a worse experience now" and wishing for a return to inane regulations.

I want more expensive flights because the rabble shouldn’t be flying. Flying is a worse experience now and cheap flights like spirit is how you get the Burger King crown guy being a common occurrence on flights.

I'm aware that flying was more enjoyable pre reform. And we could make it that enjoyable today by inflating the prices by 50-100%. The food would be better, the seats would be bigger, and planes would be emptier.

But the downside is that flying would be for rich people, just like it was pre-reforms. The poors would have to take trains or drive. Is that a good trade-off?

And to top it off, if you want to pay for a premium flying experience today, you can! For similar prices (to pre-reform flights, in real terms) you can book a "luxury flight".

Like I said, rose colored glasses.

> I don’t think the economy was hamstrung in the least

post WW2 the world basically outside of the US blew up and the US pumped a ton of money into europe+asia to bolster it.

it's easy to be #1 when everything else burnt down

Would you share a more detailed argument? Right now we only have adjectives: "ridiculous", "idiotic".

The US economy generally did very well with those standards, maybe the best it ever did, especially considering distribution of benefits.

This is a good podcast on the old regime: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/696337392

Summary of the old regime: Mergers that lead to 5+% market share were blocked.

Then the "consumer harm in terms of prices" was adopted. Which swung the pendulum the other way. That is the fundamental economic policy now. Which has lead to abhorrent results.

I wrote a comment on previous post that was about how consumer harm standards have warped the discussion on tariffs: https://qht.co/item?id=48096236

> The US economy generally did very well with those standards

Spurious correlation. Few experts (economists) think old regulations caused economic growth.

If we really want to recreate post-war growth, we should destroy half our infastructure and fight a world war. Then, in the years following the end of that war, we can experience catch-up growth.

Spurious strawperson.

I didn't say they caused it, but they sure didn't stop it.

I specifically said it was about distribution, not aggregate growth.

There's still no argument for the GGP presented.

> the years following the end of that war

Until the 1980s? I think some evidence is needed.