Volcker Rule, Iron Man, and Chemical Risk

VOLCKER RULE – JOHN BERLAU

Openmarket.org: Why JPMorgan Chase’s Mark-to-Market Losses Don’t Bolster Case for Volcker Rule

There is much still to be known about the $2 billion in losses JPMorgan Chase is reporting due to a flawed hedging strategy. But this lack of knowledge hasn’t prevented proponents of Dodd-Frank’s Volcker Rule, which bans banks from certain types of trading, from jumping into the fray and claiming this as a justification for their vaunted rule to keep banks from “gambling” with trading strategies as opposed to the “safe” activities of lending.

IRON MAN MOVIE – MATT PATTERSON

Globalwarming.org: Iron Man: Capitalist Hero

Filmmakers who have brought Tony Stark to the big screen in a string of recent blockbusters—Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012)—have made him even more unpalatable to liberals. After all, what other super-hero is regularly shown blasting terrorists out of their caves in Afghanistan, or working side-by-side with the United States Military? Imagine how queasy greens must feel to see that this arch-capitalist be the one to invent renewable energy in the Marvel universe. And worse, he didn’t do it for the good of Mankind. He did for entirely selfish reasons, indeed, the most selfish reason: He built the first, miniature version of his energy source in the first Iron Man film in order to power his wounded heart, which had been shredded by enemy shrapnel.

More unforgivable from the environmentalists’ perspective, however, is that Stark did all of this without a Department of Energy grant. > Read the full commentary at Globalwarming.org

Chemical Risk – Angela Logomasini

Openmarket.org: Framing the Debate on Chemical Regulation

Last week, CEI hosted a congressional briefing on chemical policy and regulation (the video of the event is forthcoming). A news story in Risk Policy Report covering the event proclaims: “Free- Free-Market Group Seeks To ‘Re-Frame’ Hill Debate Over Chemical Risk.” Indeed we do!

I presented on why Congress should not “modernize” the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Dr. Rick Belzer addressed the National Toxicology Program’s faulty carcinogen classification methodology, and Dana Joel Gattuso addressed why Congress need not impose onerous regulations on the cosmetics and personal-care product industries. Unfortunately, our views are unique, but they shouldn’t be. Even those industry groups who will be harmed by misguided chemical policy reforms are not fighting back.