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But It’s Not Much Better Down South
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Blame Government, Not Wal-Mart
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Tires from China
Today’s news contains word that The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is calling for the recall of 450,000 Chinese tires that apparently come apart…
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Chem Goes PC
An interesting, depressing article in today’s Inside Higher Ed describes the advances that the Green Left have made in the teaching of undergraduate…
Op-Eds
Charleston’s Uncommon Tragedy: Fires do less damage today than ever before
Nine firefighters perished as a terrible inferno swept through <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Charleston’s Sofa Super Store this past Monday…
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Do We Worry Too Much About Earmarks?
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Let’s Kill the Bilateral Agreement
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Buying Eyeglasses
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Long Term Outlook on Underwriting Profits
I had an op-ed yesterday’s Washington Times about the rather dismal insurance situation along the Gulf Coast. A friend e-mailed me to challenge one…
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Goodbye Antioch!
Op-Eds
Hurricane Eye on Insurers
Throughout the hurricane zone that follows <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />America's Atlantic coastline from Texas to North Carolina, a populist…
Op-Eds
Crime’s Up
During the late 1990s, police superintendent Edward F. Davis III presided over epic crime reductions in Lowell, Massachusetts. Under his leadership, the city's crime…
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Public Accomodation in Cyberspace?
Since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, almost anyone operating a public accommodation has been banned from discriminating on a wide variety of…
Op-Eds
The Church of Rachel Carson
One hundred years after her birth in May of 1907, it’s difficult to underestimate Rachel Carson’s influence. Unfortunately, it’s all bad. That hasn’t stopped…
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$1 a year men?
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Overworked Brits?
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On Thoroughbreds
Iain, Interesting points. I’m no expert on horse racing but my understanding is that the the races in the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred…
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Mea Culpa (Sorta) on Credit Scoring
No sooner did I post my thoughts about the Supreme Court decision on credit scoring than I got an e-mail from an American Insurance…
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Improvement of the Breed?
Of course, Greg, it’s worth noting that the organizations you refer to appear to be largely falling down in their efforts to improve their…
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The Quarter Century
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SCOTUS On Insurance and Credit Reporting
A Supreme Court Decision handed down today, Safeco v. Burr, mostly sided with two insurance companies in a dispute over notifications related to the…
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Museum Architecture and American Painting
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Just What We Need? An Air Car?
An Indian company has produced a car that runs on compressed air. I’m quite skeptical of its real environmental benefits — which is I’m…
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Buddy Cianci Pasta Sauce
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Of Cabs and Freedom
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Malum Prohibitum
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Sex! Strippers! Taxes!
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Selling Insurance on the Web
Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription only) features an article about the increasing use of the Web for the sale of insurance policies. I was…
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Wildfires in California: A Growing Residual Market?
We may be seeing the emergence of yet another residual market for insurance, this time against wildfire. Even though fires have declined a great…
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Of Gas Prices and Carbon Taxes
Iain, I found your post on how higher gas prices have reduced travel very interesting. In the short term, what you present is a…
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But Maybe It’s the Best we Can do For Now
Hans, I disagree with some parts of your post on immigration and agree with others. On one hand, I’m in total agreement that we…
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Jerry Falwell, RIP
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Chrysler For Sale. Sold.
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Butt Out!
The Washington Post reports that the The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will now give higher, more restrictive ratings to films that “that…
Comment
Comments Submitted to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the Proposed Model Audit Rule
Full Document Available in…
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Charlie Crist: Populist
Florida continues its populist jihad against private insurance companies. On top of last year’s legislation letting the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. compete outright for…
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Sarko and the French Cultural Myth
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Of Chocolate and Ice Cream
A number of blogs and mainstream media outlets are going wild over proposed FDA regulations that would redefine chocolate. Right now, to be called…
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Green Spendthrifts, Get a Life!
Christine, I loved your post about the new trendy green fashions. Via Fark I’ve just come across something I think tops it: a…
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Speed Limits. . . Don’t Need ‘Em
Some visitors coming to my home this morning complained of very slow traffic on the beltway at 10:00 a.m. Serious traffic this late in the…
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I Do
Surfing around, I just came upon AT&T’s “You Will” advertising campaign from the early 1990s. The ads are well-produced and, almost fifteen years after…
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The Collapse of Private Insurance: Part XXVII
A federal jury verdict yesterday in Lousiana requiring Allstate to pay several million dollars it didn’t expect to further underlines the inherent problem with…
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Guns in Virginia
I wrote about the tragedy at Virginia Tech in National Review Online. My piece, which I wrote really quickly, went up yesterday and, as…
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More on Muir
John, yes. . .but I mentioned Pinchot because I knew you had good things to say about him. Personally, I would likely be on the…
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In defense of Muir
John– Good post. I agree that a lot of environmentalists are wackos. But I think that Muir actually deserves some due as an environmental…
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Kurt Vonnegut, RIP
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Golf Carts and Safety
A front page article in today’s New York Times comments on the rise of electric carts around the country. Particularly in retirement communities, they’ve…
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The Tip of the Iceberg
I have a piece in today’s National Review Online about the new bill that would provide optional federal chartering (OFC) for insurance companies. OFC,…
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Is Bad Regulatory Competition Better than No Regulatory Competition?
I had an interesting conversation about regulatory competition in the context of insurance. A lawyer I was speaking with argued that any regulatory competition structure—even…
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Koch on Management
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So Where do the Shipping Disasters Take Place?
They take place at home. Let me explain. In studies of regulatory policy, the international flags-of-convenience system for shipping often gets cited as an example…
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Bush vs. Gore
Snopes has the lowdown on a very interesting e-mail forward about the homes of George W. Bush and Al Gore. Worth a read.
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Modernism (And Libertarianism) at the Corcoran
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An interesting idea for insurance choice
In the next few weeks, I'm going to be writing a good deal about the idea that insurance companies should have the ability to do…
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Thoughts about McCarran-Ferguson
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, angry with the whole insurance industry over the situation in his home state of Mississippi, has announced that he…
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AP on the Nanny State
The AP has a very good article on the growth of the Nanny State. Best fact I didn’t know: two states have banned smoking…
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Yes, But. . .
Fran, I knew about most of the cases you cite when I wrote the first post. None of those new to me are surprising and…
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I (sorta) Love Consumer Reports
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Me Want Cookie!
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Wait! Is HRC (a little bit) Right for the Wrong Reasons?
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Can “Unsafe” Planes Save Lives?
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Cookie Scalping
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Green AND Market Oriented
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But we can learn some lessons from the U.K.
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A Typical Government Response
Following a tragic bus accident over the weekend, Georgia has announced it will rework several highway exits to make them “safer.” The new measures, the…
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Roberts’ All-Too-Numerous Rules
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Leave the wind to Uncle Sam?
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Caring for Vets: A Healthy Plan
Op-Eds
Caring for Vets: A Healthy Plan
If it wants to fix the appalling mess that medical care has become at Washington D.C.’s Walter Reed hospital, the Department of the Army might…