Bank Insurance, Banning Wine Coolers and Rationing Meat for the Planet
Members of Congress consider raising the federal bank insurance limit for individual deposits to $250,000.
Utah bans flavored alcoholic malt beverages from grocery and convenience stores.
A new study from the UK argues that access to meat and dairy products must be rationed in order to stave off dangerous climate change.
More headlines: listen to the LibertyWeek podcast.
1. FINANCE
Members of Congress consider raising the federal bank insurance limit for individual deposits to $250,000.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on raising the limit could leave taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars:
“…if you were fortunate enough to inherit or sophisticated enough to accumulate more than $100,000, you don’t need the extra protection from other taxpayers. How hard is it, under the current system, for folks with $250,000 burning holes in their pockets to find three different banks to put it in?! This could result in billions more liabilities now on the shoulder of the average taxpayer. And even if banks had to pay increased fees to cover this instead, that would be that much less they had to lend out during the credit crunch, defeating the whole purpose.”
2. CONSUMER
Utah bans flavored alcoholic malt beverages from grocery and convenience stores.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer on the ubiquity of consumer product bans:
“Even as the array of consumer products available to the average American expands each day, a bewildering variety of government regulations serve to limit consumer choice. From the aircraft on which Americans fly to the food they buy in the grocery store, government regulation limits product choice at every turn.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
A new study from the UK argues that access to meat and dairy products must be rationed in order to stave off dangerous climate change.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Journalism Fellow Lene Johansen on how the anti-meat message is coming from the UN as well:
“If you ever had any doubt that the global warming alarmism agenda was a ‘lower-the-standard-of-living’ agenda, please listen carefully to [United Nations’] IPCC chairman Pachauri. ‘Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,’ said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian.”
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