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Section 338-tariff uncertainty highlights the knowledge problem
Last month, the Trump administration invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose new 50 percent tariffs against Canada. A…
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Class is in session: Are educators ready for AI?
From the early internet to modern artificial intelligence (AI), technological change causes panic. News outlets often amplify fears surrounding AI. Teachers and…
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Forecasts, not puppet strings: The myth that prediction markets rig reality (Part II)
Prediction markets have become an increasingly prominent tool for forecasting elections, economic indicators, geopolitical developments, and other uncertain events. Their growing popularity has also…
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Free the Economy podcast: The Independence Index with Marc Wheat
In this week’s episode we cover the effect of tariffs on car prices, trends in electricity supply and demand, and the…
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Revenue over reason: A case for home distilling
Want to distill spirits at home? Congress says you can’t. This ban from the Reconstruction era was not instated for health or…
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FSC v. Paxton after one year: Age verification moves down the stack
This past June marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s FSC v. Paxton decision. The Court held that states may require age…
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Freedom Haulers won’t fix the truck driver shortage that Trump helped worsen
With more than two million truck driving jobs and a growing demand to replace departing workers, the industry requires a steady supply of…
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Protectionism in North America? Not again
Well before its ratification in 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was scorned by its critics as a dangerous, unfair deal. CEI,…
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The epistemological mismatch of KOSA’s constructive knowledge standard
The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a markup on Wednesday for several online child safety bills, including the Kids Online Safety Act (…
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The week in regulations: Peach diversion programs and nuclear packages
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates the same, and an increase may be on the way. Economic growth remained below average, and inflation remained…
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Trump administration decision highlights disastrous Part D redesign
The Trump administration recently announced the end of a demonstration project that was pulled together by the Biden administration as the Inflation Reduction…
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Fauci’s lasting legacy will be the damage he did to science and government
Anthony Fauci isn’t faring well in the court of public opinion. His recently divulged “diary” and subsequent July 29 appearance before the Senate Homeland…
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When driverless vehicles are attacked, look for the union label
Self-driving cars are coming to major cities, and one group in particular is not happy about this: unions. An effort to bring self-driving vehicles…
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The self-defeating trade policy affecting memory chips
Affordability is a major concern for many Americans. Whether you’re checking out at the grocery store, filling up at the gas station, or paying…
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The AI Jobs apocalypse gets postponed, as CEI predicted
The prophesies of doom that artificial intelligence would destroy jobs have been put on hold recently. Businesses, including the ones that use AI technology,…
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Forecasts, not puppet strings: The myth that prediction markets rig reality (Part I)
Prediction markets have become an increasingly prominent tool for forecasting elections, economic indicators, geopolitical events, and other uncertain outcomes. As their popularity has grown,…
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TSA Gold+ is worth its weight as a major step toward airport security privatization
For more than two decades, debate over airport security has largely centered on whether the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should continue conducting passenger screening…
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The forced labor fig leaf
The cardinal rule of President Trump’s trade policy is that he just likes tariffs. Any intellectual justification is just rationalizing his gut feelings.
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The week in regulations: Carbon nanotubes and colored sausage casings
President Trump enacted new tariffs against more than 60 countries. Some of the Canada tariffs invoke a never-used statute from the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff…
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One lesson socialists forgot: Price controls never work
Socialists in both parties may feel they are offering fresh solutions to today’s problems, whether it is government-run grocery stores from Democrats or…
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Demystifying the DCC: Where circuit courts draw the line on energy protectionism
The Dormant Commerce Clause (DCC) is a headache for students and professionals alike. The doctrine’s applicability is notoriously nuanced. In recent decades, however, its…
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State Directed Payments redistribute money across states and supercharged growth
Differences in states’ use of SDPs cause an interstate redistribution of taxes as well. Because states are setting different levels of SDPs, spending varies…
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How State Directed Payments turned Medicaid into an interstate transfer scheme
Medicaid’s financing rules have long allowed states to expand spending while shifting much of the cost to federal taxpayers. One of the most important…
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Medicaid financing gimmickry – before and after the One Big Beautiful Bill
Medicaid was created in 1965 as a joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income individuals which targeted families with dependent children, the elderly, and…
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Free the Economy podcast: Founder’s Fire with Arthur Herman
In this week’s episode we cover Social Security reform, what’s fueling state migration, and whether using prediction markets could impact…
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Free the Economy podcast: Questioning the AI jobs doomsday with Sean Higgins
In this week’s episode we cover making home appliances great again, fighting price controls on health care, research on AI-fueled…
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Wisconsin threatens to strip the vote from prediction market participants
Many actions today are termed “threats to democracy,” and this is often an exaggeration. But the term fits to a tee the Wisconsin Elections…
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Section 338: Trump’s latest tariff tool could send trade policy uncertainty soaring
Just when businesses thought they had enough tariff uncertainty to manage, another chapter emerges. By turning a nearly century-old provision of trade law into…
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The exemptions in Trump’s latest Brazil tariffs reveal contradictions at the heart of pro-tariff trade policy
Last week, the Trump administration imposed a new 25 percent Section 301 tariff on many imports from Brazil. The administration argued that the…
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Getting in the way: The demise of early termination at the antitrust agencies
Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division released their Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Annual Report for…