EU Antitrust Rebuke, Record Deficit Numbers and the Costs of Global Warming Policy
1. LEGAL
European competition regulators get chastised for hiding evidence
in a case against Intel.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Regulatory Studies Fellow Ryan Young on the troubling
implications of the case:
“The antitrust laws currently on
the books are so vague, judges and regulators have essentially had to make up
their own policies. In other words, they can pretty much do whatever they want.
Look what just happened in Europe. The EU’s
ombudsman recently discovered that the EU’s antitrust regulators intentionally
suppressed ‘potentially exculpatory’ evidence in their case against Intel. That
case, remember, resulted in a €1,000,000,000 fine against Intel. Unfortunately,
the ombudsman’s finding will not affect the case’s outcome. The prosecutor lied
and got away with it, in other words. One more example of why antitrust
regulations result in the rule of men, not the rule of law.”
2. POLITICS
The Congressional Budget Office reports that the federal
deficit reached a new
record in July.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans
Bader on the impact of Obama’s
spending so far:
“The federal budget deficit has
already risen by $880 billion to an unprecedented $1.3 trillion. Most of the
increase is attributable to recent increases in federal spending, including
Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, which the Congressional Budget Office
says will actually shrink the economy in ‘the long run,’ and which ended
welfare reform, destroyed thousands of jobs in the export sector, and substituted
welfare for productive investments. Ironically, Obama had campaigned on a
promise, since broken, to make a ‘net spending cut’ in federal spending.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
Experts debate the economic
consequences of proposed global warming legislation.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo
Lewis on the economic reality of a cap
and trade system:
“Cap-and-trade is often called ‘market-based’ because each
business, spurred by the desire to minimize costs and (if
possible) amass surplus coupons it can sell for a profit, determines
where and how to cut its emissions. This is in contrast to ‘command-and-control’
regulation in which a central authority prescribes the emission rates or energy efficiencies covered entities
must achieve, or the fuel types (wind, solar, geothermal) or
technologies they must use. In practice, however, cap-and-trade
legislation typically contains buckets of command-and-control provisions. For
example, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill mandates electric generation from
renewable sources and imposes tough new efficiency standards for buildings,
appliances, transport systems, and industry.”
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