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Celebrating Two Great Economists: Bruce Yandle and Julian Simon
I’d like to second my colleague Fred’s birthday wishes for the distinguished economist Bruce Yandle of Clemson University.
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The Cinematic Legacy of CEI Studios
Over the years we’ve hosted a lot of policy and social events in our current office, but we’ve also written and filmed some creative videos…
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One Last Look Back Before We Move
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A Disappointing Bipartisan Agreement on Banking Regulation
Last night at the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gave a speech covering a number of controversial campaign issues, focusing in particular on…
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The Next President Should Learn from Reagan’s Legacy on Government Reform
My colleague Wayne Crews has a fascinating policy brief out this week, “Channeling Reagan by Executive Order: How the Next President Can Begin Rolling Back…
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Politics and Economics Collide with Pokémon Go
It seems strange to think it’s been barely a week since Pokémon Go became the dominant pop culture phenomenon of the summer. Publications better known…
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Food Safety Experts Critical of GMO Labeling Bill
In an open letter released today, several food safety experts warned of the problems with a new Senate bill that would regulate the labeling of…
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Will the Sharing Economy Give Us Greater Economic Mobility?
Last night the R Street Institute sponsored a fascinating policy panel here in Washington, D.C., “Boost or Barrier? Upward mobility in the on-demand economy.”…
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Coming Soon: International Mayors for Inconvenient Travel
While we wait to see whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo will sign legislation targeting home-share listings in New York, the governmental response to the sharing economy’s…
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New York Legislature Piles on Fines for Home-Share Listings
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is currently reviewing legislation recently passed by the state’s Senate and Assembly that would establish new penalties for advertising one’s…
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Building on the Optimism of “Uber-Positive” Attitudes
There’s a new resource for understanding the state of play between politics and developments in the sharing economy, the pleasantly slim volume by the Manhattan…
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Defending the Right to Donor Privacy
The campaign to safeguard the right to privacy for charitable donors is moving one step closer to reality. Last Friday was the deadline for members…
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What’s Right with Business Schools?
Jane Shaw of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has a compelling new commentary out this week on the state of business schools.
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Muggles for Free Speech
J. K. Rowling made international headlines this week by defending free speech in an address to the PEN Literary Gala in New York. She…
Daily Caller
Be The Earth Day You Want To See
With Earth Day upon us, millions of Americans will be looking for a way to observe the event and celebrate the planet’s bounty and resources.
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Business Leaders Mount the Barricades
This has been a good week for capitalist backbone. As Kim Strassel discusses in the Wall Street Journal today, we’ve seen two high profile…
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CEOs Confront Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric
Another CEO of a big American company has spoken up about the charge that he and his employees are “destroying the moral fabric” of…
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Ed Snider: Farewell to a Business Legend
Today is a sad day for fans of capitalism and Philadelphia sports alike. Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and sports industry legend Ed Snider passed away over…
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Is GE a Capitalist Good Guy or a Corporate Bad Guy?
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post, hitting back against charges that his company is “destroying…
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Building a Better Society with a Better Mousetrap
Last night, the Smithsonian American Art Museum here in Washington hosted a fascinating book event featuring a presentation by Alan Rothschild, co-author of…
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Shady Marketing Claims for “Green” Cleaning Products
Serena Ng of The Wall Street Journal reports today on the murky world of marketing for “green” and “natural” household products. Ads for these…
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Small Scale Entrepreneurs Are Nothing New
The rise of the sharing economy and related trends, by which individuals are exercising more control over their work schedules and income flow, garners a…
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Advancing Capitalism at the New Intellectual Forum
Yesterday, my colleague Fred Smith and I co-hosted the New Intellectual Forum, an exciting event that brought business leaders and free market intellectuals together for…
CNS News
Skittish About ‘Capitalism’ – But Who Is Really Rigging the Game?
This political season, Americans are skittish about capitalism. Some fear it will create inequality and wage stagnation, while others simply lack clarity on what capitalism…
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New Poll Numbers Paint a Fascinating “Portrait of America”
During a presidential campaign, pollsters ride high. Despite perennial criticism, “horse race”–style campaign reporting nevertheless keeps political junkies glued to Twitter, awaiting the latest…
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David Bowie, Financial Wizard
With the announcement today of the death of David Bowie, tributes from fellow artists and his millions of fans are pouring in. While it may…
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Scrooge Was the Ultimate Job Creator
In a 2013 essay for Forbes that is quickly becoming a Christmas classic, my colleague Fred Smith took a fresh look at the character of…
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Deflate Drug Prices by Reforming the FDA
This Wednesday, the Senate Select Committee on Aging will hold a hearing on “sudden price spikes” among certain off-patent drugs. The most widely publicized of these…
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Anti-Capitalism on Campus
Prof. Brad Thompson of Clemson University writes this week in Minding the Campus on the impact of corporate donations to institutions of higher education. In particular, he describes…
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Calling All Public Choice Scholars
Earlier this month the Cato Institute generously hosted a small roundtable discussion of CEI’s recent study “Virtuous Capitalism: Why there Is Less Corruption in…
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What Does the World Think of Capitalism?
The Legatum Institute in the U.K. has an important new international poll out about public attitudes towards capitalism and the business world. They hired YouGov to…
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Sell a Kidney, Save a Life
Last week I blogged about the idea that some things should not be part of a market economy, and highlighted one rather silly example of…
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Onions Have No Futures
Lots of people object to markets in certain commodities. Kidneys, archeological relics, adoption rights, and a host of more prosaic items have been deemed by…
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Learn Liberty Schools Us on Beer Regulation
As they have done so often in the past, our friends at Learn Liberty have come up with a great new video series illustrating…
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Ed Snider: A Sports CEO Talks Leadership and Success
This week the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business was host to an excellent event on business leadership, featuring Comcast-Spectacor CEO and…
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Betting on the Future: 25 Years Later
Today is the 25th anniversary of the famous bet between economist Julian Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich over the price of five metals: chromium, copper,…
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Free Enterprise: Sometimes We Forget
When we find ourselves debating specific issues having to do with economics and business, we often forget how overwhelming the evidence is for the superiority…
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Celebrating a Great Editor: Max Borders and The Freeman
Yesterday the Foundation for Economic Education’s “Anything Peaceful” blog carried the news that editor Max Borders was leaving his position directing content for FEE.org and FEE’s…
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Corporate Ads Need to Sell Ideas, Too
Tim Montgomerie, a columnist for The Times of London and founder of ConservativeHome, writes in CapX this week about the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. Reviewing…
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Executive Wisdom from Down Under
Yesterday the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted Andrew Mackenzie of Australian natural resources giant BHP Billiton here in D.C. as part of their CEO Leadership…
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Rebuilding Liberty with Charles Murray
My colleague Fred Smith has a new review up, this time of Charles Murray’s most recent book By the People: Rebuilding Liberty without Permission. Murray argues that…
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A First Look at Markets without Limits
Georgetown University professors Jason Brennan and Pete Jaworski (left) have a new book out with a fascinating premise: anything that it is morally permissible…
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The Government Makes a Terrible Boyfriend
He’s from the government, and he’s here to help. That’s the comic premise of this summer’s best YouTube video series, “Love Gov,” from the…
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Why Thieves Hate Free Markets
Don Boudreaux over at Café Hayek has just given a 2015 boost to a smart 2012 video from Learn Liberty on social cooperation in…
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Bastiat Society Rallies Business Leaders Together
My venerable colleague Fred Smith and I just returned from the Hoosier State, where we were honored to be guests of the Indianapolis chapter of the …
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Reports of Capitalism’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
British journalist Paul Mason has famously declared that capitalism is dying, and he is in no sniffling state of mourning about it. In advance…
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The Persistent Truth of Income Mobility
There’s a lot being written these days about income (and wealth) inequality, and how a free market economy allegedly exacerbates the divide between the rich and…
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What Cartoons Can Teach Us about Capitalism
The Freeman has an excellent article by FEE advisory board member Robert Anthony Peters on economic lessons in popular culture—in this case focusing on the wealthiest…
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Do Conservatives Really Care about the Poor?
American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks has a new book out this week, The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous…
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The SEC Sinks Its Claws Deeper into Executive Pay Packages
Once upon a time critics of corporate America complained that executive salaries were too high, and too often disconnected from the performance of the firm.
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Join the “I, Whiskey” Team
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's newest film project, I, Whiskey: The Spirit of the Market, is currently in production, and you can help make it…
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Highlights of FreedomFest 2015
The happy warriors of CEI have returned from our sojourn to Las Vegas and the excitement of FreedomFest 2015: Discover the New American Dream. The…
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How Capitalism Created the Modern Family
Prof. Steve Horwitz of St. Lawrence University has a fascinating article up at MarketWatch, in which he argues that many of the major changes in family…
Daily Caller
The Dark Side of Earth Day
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Tesla vs. the Auto Dealers: A Hilarious Update
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Capitalism Makes a Comeback on Campus
There’s exciting stuff going on in the world of higher education these days for fans of free markets. Just last week, the University of Arizona’s …
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When Kittens Explode
A fascinating Kickstarter funding campaign just ended yesterday, and it was a major one. A new card game with the alarming title of “Exploding…
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Zenefits: A Disruptive Company Fights Back
Sometimes cronyism in the business world takes the form of a company receiving special government favors and subsidies—the now-infamous Solyndra, for example—but sometimes it takes…
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Educating Tomorrow’s Business Leaders on Markets and Politics
This weekend I attended a fascinating event at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on the subject of economic inequality. Prof. …
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A Big Payoff for Patient Investors
There’s a fascinating story in The New York Times this week about pharmaceutical companies and the process of discovering new drugs. Fifteen years ago, the…
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The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 25 Years Later
This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While much is going to be written about this quarter-century anniversary, my colleague…
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The Tesla File: Government Favors Cut Both Ways
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors has become a fascinating case study in economic freedom in recent years, although the narrative is a complicated one. The…
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Must Every Product in the World Be Safe Enough for Children?
The New York Times reported Friday on the David-and-Goliath battle of businessman Shihan Qu, the last of the rare earth magnet renegades. Mr. Qu’s…
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Billionaire Diversity: Foreign vs. Domestic
Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West, whose new book Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust is being released later this week, has another intriguing graphic…
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Celebrate Billionaire Diversity
Darrell West, a Vice President at the Brookings Institution, has a new book coming out next week on the political influence of the very wealthy,…
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Voter Ignorance and Political Reform
If you’re a voter in Los Angeles, you just may wind up with an unexpected windfall the next time you cast your ballot. The Los…
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The American (Business) Revolution
On our nation’s 238th birthday, a flood of public events, political speeches, and TV specials will remind us of the courage of our colonial ancestors…
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The Story of Cosmetics: The Critique
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LibertyWeek 104: Battlefield Arizona
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The Open Internet and Lessons from the Ma Bell Era
News Release
House Takes Baby Steps on Internet Gambling Reform
Washington, D.C., July 30, 2010—This week the House Financial Services Committee passed H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, originally introduced…
News Release
House to Vote on Oil Spill Bill
Washington, D.C., July 30, 2010—Today the House of Representatives will vote on an energy bill to address BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The bill,…
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NOAA to Skeptics: We’re Right, You Can’t Deny It
A recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has received wide media attention, has come to the conclusion that evidence for anthropogenic…
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History of Environmentalism
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Chris Horner on the Politics of Cap and Trade
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Hans Bader on the Nation’s Worst Attorneys General
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LibertyWeek 103: Katherine Mangu-Ward Edition
News Release
Free Market Groups Urge Reform of Internet Gambling Law
Washington, D.C., July 26, 2010—Today a coalition of free market organizations, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, released a joint letter to Congress regarding upcoming legislation…
News Release
Lift Government Barriers to Encourage Competition and Innovation
Washington, D.C., July 21, 2010—Tomorrow the Senate Commerce Committee will mark up the “America COMPETES Act,” possibly adding an amendment that would create a 15-member…
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LibertyWeek 102: Collective Insanity
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LibertyWeek 101: Urban Beekeepers Unite!
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LibertyWeek 100: The Venerable Fred L. Smith, Jr.
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Fred L. Smith: Is Greed Good?
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LibertyWeek 99: Sarbanes-Oxley Smackdown
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LibertyWeek 96: Donut Day Disobedience
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LibertyWeek 95: Tea Party in a China Shop?
News Release
New Rules for Online Gambling Take Force
New restrictions on Internet gambling – which financial companies such as banks and credit unions must officially abide by as of today – will not…
News Release
Regulators Stage Extreme Refreshment Crackdown
Washington, D.C., May 27, 2010—The Food and Drug Administration’s attempts to crack down on makers of alcoholic beverages with added caffeine are unwarranted and rely…
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LibertyWeek 94: The Nanny State Diaries
News Release
CEI Seeks Climategate- and FOIA-Related Documents from University of Virginia
Washington, D.C., May 24, 2010—On Friday the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, DC free-market think tank, filed a Request seeking records from the University of…
News Release
House Eyes Internet Gambling Reform
As the House Ways and Means Committee prepares for a hearing Wednesday on potential revenue from regulated Internet gambling, analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
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LibertyWeek 93: Tea Party Euro Trip
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CEI in the News for May 11, 2010
News Release
Kerry-(Graham)-Lieberman Bill a Huge Payoff to Big Business
Washington, D.C., May 11, 2010—As Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) prepare to introduce their long-delayed energy-rationing legislation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls…
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LibertyWeek 92: FCC Power Grab
News Release
The First Amendment Doesn’t Need a Bailout
Washington, D.C., May 10, 2010—In recently-submitted regulatory comments, the Competitive Enterprise Institute urged the Federal Communications Commission to take a stand against government interference…
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A Day in the Life of the Regulatory State
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2010 Bureaucrash Student Activism Competition
News Release
Misguided Privacy Legislation Threatens Digital Commerce, Innovation
Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) today unveiled draft legislation aimed at improving online privacy that would impose new rules on…
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