The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. POLITICS

State officials accuse Gov. Arnold 

Schwarzenegger of undermining recent legislation on greenhouse gas emissions.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell on the folly of 

Schwarzenegger’s policy on global warming:

“While its actions are being lauded as a step into the future, California is actually a late entry into the already failed game of energy rationing. Europe, Japan and Canada are all failing spectacularly to meet their emissions reductions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, despite years of breathless cheerleading for cap-and-trade mechanisms. What California has done today is to decide to become a Third World economy.”

2. ECONOMICS

Despite official opposition, underground markets for consumer goods in Cuba continue to flourish.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on Cuba’s under-the-table entrepreneurs:

“’Socialismo o muerte’ (‘socialism or death’) may be the choice that Fidel Castro has imposed upon Cuba’s population for decades, but many Cubans are responding, ‘Neither.’ As The Washington Post reports, Cubans all over the island are resorting to thriving ‘black market’ enterprise—a lot of which would be legal just about anywhere else, with the exception of, say, North Korea.”

3. BUSINESS

A new study suggests that business school students expect more instruction on the “social responsibility” of corporations.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Regulatory Policy Analyst Isaac Post on the ideological background of the CSR movement:

“Though CSR was labeled by free-market icon Milton Friedman as a ‘subversive doctrine,’ much of the business community has embraced it, arguing that it is simply ‘good for our business.’ Opponents of CSR have naturally argued the contrary, emphasizing the economic costs of following such a ‘misguided virtue’ as CSR. But little attention has been paid to the actual arguments made by advocates of CSR within the business community. This is a shame, because a closer analysis of the “business case for CSR” shows that it is, indeed, based on a set of assumptions that undermine the legitimacy of the free-enterprise system.”