Blog
Regulation of the Day 21: Potato Research and Promotion
The Agricultural Marketing Service has a potato research and marketing plan, pursuant to the Potato Research and Marketing Act.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 20: Anti-Flatulence Medication
The U.S. Code contains an entire section on over-the-counter anti-flatulence medication. There are rules for permitted active ingredients, maximum dosage, and label text.
Blog
Exploiting the Minimum Wage
Young people with little or no work experience may not be able to offer $7.25 per hour worth of productivity; small wonder so many of…
Blog
Leave it to the Experts
Send your used light bulbs to Washington! They're the experts. They'll know what to do.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 19: Fospropofol
The Drug Enforcement Administration, would like to schedule fospropofol, approved by the FDA last year for use as an anesthetic, as a Schedule IV controlled…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 18: Shipping Live Animals
If you ship live animals via the USPS’s Express Mail Service and it takes three days or more, you may be eligible for a refund,…
Blog
Policies to Promote Competition often Stifle it Instead
Chairman Genachowski is right that the Internet has been “the most successful driver of economic growth” in recent years. Why, then, pursue an agenda that…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Sliding Car Doors
A new set of rules for sliding car doors will come into effect on September 1, 2010.
Blog
Subsidize Cheese to Stimulate?
Blog
In Which the Case for Antitrust Action against Telecoms Weakens
New research finds that U.S. telecoms are charging, on average, ten cents less per minute than their counterparts around the world. Tell me again why…
Blog
Keynes Remains Popular with Politicians
"‘What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes.” -…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Endangered Snails
The sixteenth in an occasional series that shines a bit of light on the regulatory state. Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from…
Blog
The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
Blog
Regulation of the Day: The Color of Stitches
The federal government regulates which colors may be used in surgical stitches.
Blog
Making Regulation Transparent
Overlawyered
Federal crimes go from 3 to 4,500
Blog
Flying Is a Taxable Event
Blog
Doing Business in DC
DC Progress notes that Washington, DC has ranked dead last in the annual Small Business Survival Index every year since the mid-1990s. One of the…
Blog
A Second Stimulus?
Any stimulus proposal is, by its very nature, less than a zero-sum proposition. Stimulus involves taking some money out of the economy, wasting some of…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Asphalt Emissions
EPA is proposing national emission standards for asphalt processing and asphalt roofing manufacturing.
Blog
Antitrust Irony
Microsoft is having a tense antitrust discussion with the EU. Meanwhile, Google is readying an operating system to directly compete with Windows. Compare and contrast.
Blog
Antitrust Policy and Telecoms
It’s hard to make a case that a company is abusing market power if it doesn’t really have any. And Verizon and AT&T are not…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: The Size of Your Carry-On Bags
The Securing Cabin Baggage Act wouldn't add to security, wouldn't make flying more convenient, and may well be the result of rent-seeking.
American Spectator
Unnecessary Baggage
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) thinks that your carry-on bags are a threat to national security. To address this grave threat, he has introduced the Securing…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: The Price of Shrimp
The ITA has been upset for some time that a Thai shrimp exporter is selling shrimp cheaply; hungry consumers have had no complaints.
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Saving the Children from Durable Products
How much safer will this rule make our children? How much more expensive will the affected goods be? How many people actually bother to send…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Cap and Trade
The Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill that passed the House last week contains 397 new regulations.
Blog
Regulation of the Day: School Buses
Because of overwhelmingly negative comments, DOT has decided not to go forward with a proposed change to federal school bus policy (isn’t education supposed to…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Solid Waste
When an agency screws up really badly, political leaders will sometimes change the agency's name. The EPA’s Office of Solid Waste is now called the…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Rice Inspection Certificates
Our rice is in crisis. Inspection certificates currently contain some data in the grade line section that better belongs in the results section. Fortunately, the…
Blog
Taxes without Borders
Blog
Regulation of the Day: The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
The State Department has renewed its membership in the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. This will cost taxpayers more than $2 million in annual membership dues.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Federal Regulatory Burden Hits $1.17 Trillion by Bob Barr
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Parole Rules for Federal Prisoners
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the Department of Justice ($26 billion 2009 budget, 112,000 employees). Parole rules for DC offenders and…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Clean Air in Columbus, OH
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the EPA. One would think that regulators, seeing heartening results, would pat themselves on the back…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Saving the Children
On June 26, the National Commission on Children and Disasters is having a meeting. They will be talking about another meeting from the day before.
Blog
Danson in the Dark
Actor and noted intellectual Ted Danson has a piece on CNN.com entitled "World's Biggest Fish Are Dying." To his credit, it is not about whales.
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Drawbridge Schedules in Sturgeon Bay, WI
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the Department of Homeland Security (208,000 employees, $52 billion 2009 budget).
Washington Examiner
To Stimulate the Economy, Let it be Free
Lobbying is about the only sector of the economy experiencing a boom right now. This is a predictable effect of the tax-and-spend stimulus model favored…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Taxpayer-Funded Advertising for Mushrooms
This is the first installment of an occasional series that shines a little light on what the regulatory state is up to. Today’s Regulation of…
Blog
Twenty Years since Tiananmen Square
China is a very different place than it was twenty years ago. It was on this day in 1989 that one anonymous, brave soul halted…
Detroit News
Stimulate Economy Through Deregulation
The economy is contracting at a rate of more than 6 percent this year to date. This is hurting the country and especially Michigan, whose…
Cafe Hayek
A Tax By Any Other Name
Blog
The Cost of Cybersecurity in Context
During his remarks, President Obama noted that "cyber crime has cost Americans more than $8 billion." He continued, "My presidency has so far cost Americans…
Investors' Business Daily
America’s Hidden Trillion-Dollar Tax
We need a breather to take it all in: TARP, a $787 billion stimulus bill and a projected $1.845 trillion budget deficit. But lost among…
Blog
Lamb Roast: Mankind’s Doom
Blog
Fulfilling Prophecies
CBO estimated today that unemployment will top out at around 10.5% before it recovers. Congress is doing its part to make CBO’s dire prophecy a…
Blog
Happy 203rd Birthday, John Stuart Mill
Blog
Another Postage Hike on Monday
Postage rates will go up on Monday. Thanks to the forever stamp, most of us won’t have to bother with those infernal 2-cent stamps this…
Blog
Congress to Tackle College Football
Having solved all of America's other problems, Congress is turning its attention to how college football's national championship is decided.
Blog
Advice for Conservatives
Blog
Fed Policies Contradict Each Other
Low-inflation monetary policy and low-unemployment monetary policy contradict each other. The results speak for themselves.
Financial Times
Fed’s policies contradict each other
Sir, Henry Kaufman frets that “libertarian dogma led the Fed astray” (April 28). Congress, not free-market ideology, is the real culprit. One reason…
Blog
The Economics of Pirate Deterrence
How can we stop pirate attacks? By applying the law of demand. If something becomes more costly, people consume less of it. How to do…
Blog
Washington Logic
Blog
GM CEO to Resign
The President seems to think that GM is not fit to run itself. Given recent events, he may well be right. But how on earth…
Blog
Soft Toilet Paper: Mankind’s Doom?
The NRDC's Allen Hershkowitz says that "People just don't understand that softness equals ecological destruction." I had to chuckle after reading that last sentence (it…
Blog
Why Good Men Don’t Become President Anymore
Time Magazine
Broken Windows, Broken Logic
Kinsley's latest missive in time falls prey to one of the oldest traps in economics–Frédéric Bastiat's broken-window fallacy. Just as a broken window creates work…
Cafe Hayek
Tranquilizing the Stimulators
Blog
CEI in Time Magazine
Our CEI colleague Drew Tidwell and I fired off a letter to Time Magazine recently; one of their columnists fell for the old broken window…
Blog
Soundbites vs. The World
American Spectator
The Myth of Buying Local
Buying local has always been a popular sentiment, but the movement has picked up steam in recent years. Especially this holiday season, consumers are being…
Blog
Mortgage Madness
Here is a letter I fired to the Wall Street Journal: December 17, 2008 Editor, The Wall Street Journal 200 Liberty Street New…
Blog
Broken Windows, Broken Logic
Blog
How Not to Create Jobs
Blog
America to Lurch Left?
The Weekly Standard‘s Fred Barnes has a scare story in today’s Wall Street Journal. He warns of a lurch to the left if Barack…
Blog
Stock Market Selloff?
Blog
U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Stirs in Its Sleep
The stalled U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement has become a campaign issue in Florida’s 25th District, which is home to a substantial Colombian-American population. Rep.
Blog
More Trade Means More Peace
Op-Eds
Government’s “10,000 Commandments” Cost Americans More than $1 Trillion
Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending, according to “Ten Thousand…
Heartland
Government’s “10,000 Commandments” Cost Americans More than $1 Trillion
Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending, according to “Ten Thousand Commandments,”…
Op-Eds
In Defense of Early Termination Fees
If early termination fees reduce competition in the cell phone marketplace, then why is there so much of it?…
Op-Eds
A ‘Hidden Tax’ Of Rules Hits Economy
Regulatory compliance now costs of $1.16 trillion, higher than Canada's entire 2004 GDP—that's a knock-out blow to the economy…
Blog
Is the Stimulus Working?
Blog
Putting the Farm Bill in Perspective
Blog
Doha Round Stalled Again
Blog
Minimum Wage to Increase Thursday
Cafe Hayek
Regulation by Markets, Not by Bureaucrats
Blog
End Farm Subsidies, Save Doha
Op-Eds
Corporate Welfare for XM/Sirius Competitors?
Wayne Crews and Ryan Young argue that terrestrial radio's opposition shows that a merger between Sirus and XM will benefit consumers.
Real Clear Markets
Corporate Welfare for XM/Sirius Competitors?
After a year's delay, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin blessed Sirius Satellite Radio’s buyout of its competitor, XM. Martin is just one of…
Blog
Minimum Wage Maximizes Teen Jobless Rate
Blog
UK Town to Abolish Traffic Cameras
Blog
EU Farmers Cry Over Spilled Milk
Study
The United States-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Deserves a Vote
Sound trade and foreign policy is being held hostage to politics.
Blog
Jagdish Bhagwati: Simplicity Is Beautiful
Blog
Has the WTO Gone Bananas?
Blog
Obama Now a NAFTA Supporter
Blog
A New Regulatory Order?
Blog
FCC to Nullify Millions of Contracts?
Blog
Korea’s Beef Standoff Continues
Blog
U.S.-Korean Trade Agreement Stalls
Blog
Crafty Regulators
Blog
The Cuban Embargo
Blog
The Epidemiology of Protectionism
Blog