Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Olympic games began in Tokyo, after being delayed a year due to COVID-19. Congress is working its way through a $3.5 trillion spending bill…
Blog
Carbon Tariffs Would Hurt Consumers, Slow Recovery
Over in the Washington Examiner, I take a look at the carbon tariff proposal that will likely be in the $3.5 trillion spending bill…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI announced that renowned development economist William Easterly will receive its 2021 Julian Simon Award at a two-day event in Washington, D.C., on…
Blog
Green Protectionism on the Rise?
The $3.5 trillion budget proposal that the Democratic leadership in Congress is putting together will reportedly include the world’s first carbon tariffs, which are…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Blog
Relevant Markets, A Dozen Keystrokes, and the Google Play Store Antitrust Lawsuit
Yesterday, after markets closed, 36 state attorneys general announced another antitrust lawsuit against Google. This complaint centers around Google’s Play Store, in which it…
Blog
A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus
Over in The Hill, Wayne Crews and I argue that more deficit spending won’t help the COVID recovery. Regulatory reform is more powerful stimulus…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The CEI community mourned the loss of Steve Horwitz, a principled classical liberal, a fine economist, and an even finer person. We’ll miss you, Steve.
Blog
The 2021 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments Is Out Now
How much does regulation cost? It’s hard to tell, due to a lack of transparency. The government is legally required to tell the public how…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Negotiators reached a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure bill, at least for now. There were also marathon committee markup sessions for five antitrust bills. Meanwhile,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Members of Congress introduced five antitrust bills last week. Antitrust activist Lina Khan was confirmed to a seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and…
Blog
A Better Approach to Tariff Diplomacy
In diplomacy, carrots tend to be more effective than sticks. Yet, two consecutive administrations have used tariff threats to try to achieve their objectives. Former…
Blog
Boeing-Airbus Dispute Remains Unsolved: Tariffs Gone, Subsidies Stay
The European Union and the United States eagerly announced today that they had resolved their 17-year dispute over aerospace subsidies. They exaggerate their claims.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economic recovery continues, but Congress is still intent on passing unneeded stimulus and infrastructure spending. Inflation is also up, and five antitrust bills are…
Blog
CPI Inflation Indicator Hits 5 Percent: Not Stagflation, But a Useful Warning
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May came out this morning. At 5 percent, it was higher than expected. CPI has its flaws…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Unemployment is back under 6 percent, and it’s looking more and more like the economy is reverting back to trend. We’re not there yet, but…
Blog
Steel Companies Lobby for Steel Tariffs, Biden to Double Lumber Tariffs
One of the first things President Biden should have done upon taking office was to eliminate the Trump tariffs. This would have provided potent economic…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI’s Wayne Crews looked at the Biden administration’s dismantling transparency reforms for guidance documents and warned that political spending on scientific research would…
Blog
Microsoft to Retire Internet Explorer: Lessons for Today’s Antitrust Cases
Microsoft just announced it will retire its Internet Explorer browser next year. This is the same program that was at the heart of an…
Blog
What Inflation Is, and What It Isn’t
It looks like we’re in for a bit of inflation. After decades of stable 2 percent inflation, the latest indicators say it’s moving up…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The best news of the week was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising that vaccinated people can safely go mask-free pretty much anywhere.
Blog
One of Google’s Antitrust Cases Dismissed, for Now
A District judge on Thursday dismissed a private antitrust case against Google brought by a group of advertisers. It does not affect separate cases…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Facebook Oversight Board conditionally upheld former President Trump’s Facebook ban. Many Republican responses showed that they either do not understand the First Amendment or…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economy bounced back in a big way, according to numbers released on Thursday. Things are not quite back where they were, but the trend…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news of the week was the guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Senate Republicans continued their longtime strategy of bargaining with…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress played a round of good idea-bad idea last week. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) introduced a bill for a regulatory budget, similar to the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen floated the idea of a global minimum corporate tax and Amazon workers in Alabama voted against unionizing. The Biden…
Blog
Who Pays Corporate Taxes?
Congress is considering increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent to help pay for the big infrastructure bill it is currently…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington’s attention flitted back and forth between beginning work on a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and a brewing sex scandal allegedly involving Rep. Matt Gaetz and…
Blog
U.S. Trade Representative Tai Should Rethink Keeping China Tariffs in Place
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal interviewed Katherine Tai, the new United States Trade Representative. She has a lot of work ahead of her…