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CEI and the minimum wage
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) recently proposed a bill to increase the federal minimum wage to $25. Listed below are 18 arguments against raising the…
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Free the Economy podcast: The Great Realignment with Stephen Davies
In this week’s episode we cover US companies getting hammered by tariffs, jobs that are surprisingly not getting replaced by AI,…
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Colorado legislature joins Illinois in breaking national payment system
One of the glories of the modern economy is that you can walk into a store anywhere in America, or indeed much of the…
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Railway Safety Act in the balance
Today, the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee is marking up the BUILD America Act — the surface transportation reauthorization bill. Among the amendments…
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CEI leads coalition supporting OCC preemption of Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act
CEI today sent a letter to Jonathan Gould, the Comptroller of the Currency, cosigned by 22 other free market groups, supporting his office’s…
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Happy birthday to the Wealth of Nations – and to CEI
Today is the 250th anniversary of the publication of perhaps the seminal work of economics, Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes…
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America’s tariff-induced isolation grows
Few other nations or trading blocs can announce tariffs on the whim of one man, as President Trump claims the power to do…
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Tariff letters go out, with little rhyme or reason
The table below lists all the countries to which President Donald Trump has so far sent letters informing them of new universal tariff rates.
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US-UK trade deal: What it should contain
As I write this, we are awaiting the announcement of the US-UK trade deal from the White House, with reaction from UK Prime Minister…
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An economic, constitutional, and geopolitical disaster
Yesterday’s tariff announcement was long expected, yet its details came as a surprise. In one regard it was less bad than it could have…
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The CFPB drops its misguided case against Zelle
Seemingly as part of the general order to stop work by acting director Russ Vought, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has…
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CFPB Unfairly Targets Zelle
As part of a last-gasp effort by the Biden administration to punish legal businesses it disapproves of, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has…
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CEI has warned about debanking for 20+ Years – We were right
Over the last week, millions of Americans were exposed to the idea that their government has been encouraging banks to withdraw financial services from…
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Want higher air fares? Overregulate credit cards
This morning, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Transportation are holding a joint hearing “investigating” airline and credit card reward…
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New UK report recommends ‘rules about rules’ for regulation
In a new report, the Center for Policy Studies in the UK surveys that nation’s regulatory landscape – and doesn’t like what it…
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More credit card competition? Not really
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is worried about a lack of competition in payment card networks, so he’s planning to force the issue. His…
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What ails the working class?
Late last month I was privileged to be asked to speak at a Heritage Foundation event on the subject of the continuing travails…
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I’ve got your ‘common good’ right here
As a classical liberal, I believe in the value of free markets and individual liberty, but as a Freedom Conservative, I also feel…
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What we’re not seeing here: Why policy debates need Bastiat
I was honored to give a presentation this week to the George Mason University Economics Society. The title of my presentation was “Unseen Consequences:…
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The way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded is unconstitutional
Today the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association. The appellee correctly complains…
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Wall Street Journal agrees with CEI, opposes Railway Safety Act
In an editorial today, the Wall Street Journal joined with many other voices, including Bloomberg, National Review, and a coalition…
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Congress should vote no on the Railway Safety Act, says coalition
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Rio Grande Foundation today sent a coalition letter to Congress expressing serious concerns with the Senate’s Railway…
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Here comes state capitalism. There go our liberties.
CEI’s own Wayne Crews told the Washington Examiner recently, “Everything from local tap water to space commercialization is being turned into a government…
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Adam Smith’s ‘tolerable administration’ vs. America’s increasingly intolerable one
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to…
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Senate committee yells ‘all aboard!’ for controversial Railway Safety Act
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved the Railway Safety Act this morning, with all Democrats and Republican Sens. J.D. Vance (OH) and Eric…
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Large Language Models are Great Tools but Lousy Researchers
Climate skeptic Newtuber Tony Heller asked ChatGPT some questions about the climate and found it lacking. It gave the sort of answers you…
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After Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Merge?
Did antitrust ideology play a role in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the slight contagion that destabilized the global banking system…
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Rep. Duncan Leads Letter Expressing Concern over Foreign Regulatory Overreach
I’ve written before about the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, its main antitrust regulator. It has already blocked one US company from taking over…
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CFPB Court Defeat a Welcome Reminder of who Makes the Rules
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suffered a stinging reverse in court last week when its action against Chicago-area mortgage company Townstone Financial was…
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Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Faces Needless Challenges
Emboldened antitrust bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic are flexing their muscles with challenges to Microsoft’s planned acquisition of the game developer Activision,…