Op-Eds
President Obama’s Malthusian New Deal: Recovery Not
With unemployment high, economic recovery elusive, and gasoline prices near record levels, the term Great Recession has joined the economic infamy list that is only…
Op-Eds
Iowa Congressman Steve King Is Wrong On Immigration
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) thinks U.S. immigration policy should be like picking dogs. “You want a good bird dog, and you want one that’s gonna…
Blog
Classic Obfuscation: The New America Foundation’s Search for the “Public Interest”
Milton Friedman once quipped that “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Perhaps he would add the outmoded idea of the “public interest”…
Blog
No, Obama Is Not “the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower”
Blog
Today’s Links: May 25, 2012
Op-Eds
Facebook Shows Need For Smaller IPOs
When I wrote my blog here last Friday on the day of Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO), I praised the firm’s innovations but injected a…
Oil & Gas Journal
US Regulatory Costs Amplify Pressure of the Mammoth Deficit
From Bob Tippee's column in The Oil & Gas Journal: An annual report published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates the cost of…
Blog
Carbon Tariffs Again in the Spotlight
Here it comes again — talk of an EU carbon tax. This time it’s a member of the new administration of new French President Francois…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 24, 2012: Driverless Cars
A prototype driverless car made by Google recently made the rounds in Washington, DC, and Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner got to take…
Blog
Senate Vote Today on FDA, Supplements, and Energy Drinks
Today, the Senate will vote to reauthorize and modify the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) prescription drug and medical device user-fee program (…
Blog
MWAA: A Government-Authorized Fiefdom
Should Congress’s power extend to creating taxpayer-funded government entities that are free from state and federal laws concerning ethics, transparency, and disclosure? No, but it…
Newsletter
EPA chemical scare, Krugman’s bad economics and EEOC’s speech restrictions
Blog
Empty Cupboards: The Legacy of the Greatest Generation
One News Now
Has Ethanol Helped Lower Gas Prices?
From Chris Woodward's column on OneNewsNow: A new study claims the growth in ethanol production over the last 12 years has reduced wholesale…
Mackinac Center
Improve Michigan’s Economy with Alcohol Sales at Farmers Markets
Michigan farmers are on the cutting edge of the buy local trend, a movement that could provide a great boon for businesses and the state’s…
Tuscon Sentinel
Lawyers Weigh Appeal After $3.4 Billion Tribal Lands Settlement
Tuscon Sentinel reports on Ted Frank's work to appeal an unfair settlement for claims by Native Americans who entrusted property to the government.
Blog
Is the Obama Administration Anti-Business?
If President Obama has found it hard in responding to critics who accuse him of being “anti-business,” he really only has his own administration’s policies…
Blog
EEOC Restricts Speech in Viewpoint-Discriminatory Manner in Dawson v. Donahoe: De Facto Ban on Confederate Flags
The First Amendment generally protects even offensive speech, so if you wish to wear a t-shirt celebrating a bloodthirsty thug like Mao, Stalin, or Che…
Blog
Facebook’s Fall and the Post-Sarbanes-Oxley “Cheers IPOs”
How Over-Regulation is Robbing Investors of Wealth from Smaller IPOs When I wrote pieces here and at the Daily Caller late last week injecting a…
Blog
An Economics Disaster
Blog
Today’s Links: May 23, 2012
The American Spectator
A Tsunami of Bad Economics
The broken Krugman fallacy. Japan was hit by a tsunami last year on March 11. That’s not news, but the reaction of some economists sure…
Tech News World
Apple, Samsung Chiefs Pick Up Their Marbles and Go Home
From Erika Morphy's article in E-Commerce Times: Judges will often order two sides to try mediation before a legal action, Ryan Radia, an…
Forbes
Regulators’ Anti-Chemical Smear Campaigns Will Breed An Unsafe World
Useful consumer products may soon disappear from the market and innovation dwindle as regulators—state and local—expand what basically amounts to smear campaigns. These campaigns include…
Bloomberg Business
$3.4 Billion Indian Land Royalty Settlement Upheld
Bloomberg reports on the class action settlement objection which argued that some beneficiaries would be overpaid while others would be left undercompensated for their claims that…
Blog
H.R. 1909 — Unfinished Free-Market Business to Lift Barriers to Lending
They said it couldn't be done. That Congress couldn't pass a bipartisan bill in an election year to help the economy. Particularly one that lessens…
Blog
Techno-Phobic California Politicians “NHTSA” Google’s Driverless Car
Last week, I wrote about Google’s amazing new self-driving car, which CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman and I had the opportunity to test-ride in…
Bloomberg Business
Higher Education Bubble Update
From Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit: HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Are We Subsidizing Student Debt Too Generously? “Why am I subsidizing student loans for Harvard…
Cato
Obamacare’s Constitutional Defects, First Amendment Division
From Ilya Shapiro's post on Cato@Liberty: As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader put it: Obama’s HHS secretary sought to gag…
Legal Times
D.C. Circuit Upholds $3.4B Native American Class Settlement
Legal Times reports on Ted Frank's objection to a settlement that was not distributed fairly to the class members, especially those who were injured the…
Newsletter
EPA’s Friday Afternoon Surprise, Drug Imports, Google’s Self-Driving Car, H-1B visas
Blog
Congress Must End Taxpayers Vulnerability to Government Waste
Openmarket.org Fraud and abuse continue to be a barrier to effective government. According to the Cato Institute’s 2009 report, fraud or improper payments in government amount…
Blog
Obama: Promises Broken, Promises Kept
President Obama has broken many of his promises aimed at the general public and jobless Americans, but he has kept promises to his left-wing base…
Blog
Congress Must End Taxpayers Vulnerability to Government Waste
Fraud and abuse continue to be a barrier to effective government. According to the Cato Institute’s 2009 report, fraud or improper payments in government…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 21, 2012
Blog
Regulating Obama’s Regulators — And Those of Future Presidents
This month, President Obama released a new Executive Order building upon and making permanent the quest for regulatory savings in his…
Legal Times
Medical Roundup
From Overlawyered: Forcing companies to make politicized disclosures to customers implicates First Amendment [Hans Bader on HHS “must credit…
Blog
A Fit of Sanity on ITAR
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust reports that the House has passed a bill allowing the administration to remove satellites from…
Blog
EPA’s Design to Strong-Arm the Chemical Industry
If you believe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, its Design for the Environment (DfE) program is an example of a voluntary effort to protect…
Blog
Rep. Nick Rahall Responds, Agrees with Me on MAP-21’s “Sleight of Hand” Pay-Fors
This morning on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) was read a passage from a blog post…
Blog
The Future of Automobility Is (Almost) Here: Google’s Self-Driving Car
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in the Google car. (Photo by Marc Scribner)"][/caption] This morning,…
Blog
Give a Man a Fish
Those with an interest in conserving our oceans’ fish stocks and those with an interest in promoting private property should both be interested in my…
Blog
Land of the Free? Part 2: The Real War on Women
"How could it be illegal to sell something that it's perfectly legal to give away?" -- George Carlin The recent extra-curricular exploits of American Secret Service…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 18, 2012
Blog
Before Immigration Was Regulated: Pre-20th Century Migration
Early large-scale human migration is the story of dispersal, spreading out as resources were used up and populations expanded past sustainability. The Agricultural Revolution brought…
Study
Give a Man a Fish
Attempts to prevent overfishing by promulgating regulations (which are often at odds with subsidies) have proved both ineffective and impossible to enforce. Ending subsidies and…
Legal Times
Why Is Team Obama Making it So Hard to Hire Highly-Skilled Foreign Workers?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced a bill Tuesday that would allow more Ph.Ds, scientists, and other high-skilled workers trained at U.S. universities to remain in…
Forbes
Comcast’s Puny Data Cap Increase
From Timothy B. Lee's op-ed on Forbes: Ryan Radia wants to know what I think of Comcast’s announcement that it’s raising…
Forbes
Overregulation Shackles Next Facebook
Today, Facebook finally goes public with a market capitalization of $104 billion. Its initial public offering (IPO) is the capstone of its amazing ascent that…
Financial Times
Letter to the Editor: U.S. Principles at Stake As Government Keeps Growing
Sir, Martin Wolf’s latest column ignores the wisdom of conservative commentator Stan Evans: “The problem with pragmatism is that it doesn’t work!” (“American power needs…