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Forty Years of Freedom: Rail Deregulation Worked
Forty years ago today, President Carter signed the Staggers Act, which deregulated the American freight rail industry. As CEI has long maintained, this…
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Court-Packing Isn’t the Left’s Only Threat to the Supreme Court
The Left’s threat to the pack the Court by expanding the number of justices seems to be unpopular. But they have proposed other policies that…
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All Levels of Government Need a Top-to-Bottom Review of Transportation Policy
Evidence is mounting that mass transit played a major role in spreading COVID-19. According to analytics firm TrendMacro, the only factor “that seems to make…
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Are Scandinavian Countries Socialist?
Are modern Scandinavian countries actually socialist? This question must be asked because it is a common rhetorical device of “democratic socialist” politicians to wave away…
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The Socialist Temptation: Why Don’t People Remember the Horrors of Socialism?
Why are people still attracted to socialism when its history is plain for all to see? One reason is that those who proclaimed the dawn…
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The Socialist Temptation: Socialism and American Values
The way to reach people is by making sure a policy accorded with their values. In his new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray argues…
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America’s Cultural Revolution
In his forthcoming book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray talks about how socialism in China produced the Cultural Revolution. The text of the book was…
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Infrastructure Bill’s Non-Serious Nature Is a Serious Problem
America’s current surface transportation authorization, the FAST Act, expires at the end of September. Rather than reauthorizing it, however, House Democrats have introduced the INVEST…
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Emergencies and the Project Manager’s Dilemma
Government agencies’ initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis were notable for one particular characteristic: incompetence. From basic errors in data collection, through failed lab safety…
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Delivery Price Caps Threaten New Restaurant Lifeline
Tomorrow, the Washington, D.C. City Council votes on a bill that seeks to impose a price cap on the commission a third-party delivery platform can…
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The Economy after COVID-19 Will Be Different from Before, Part One
As governors begin to lift restrictions on economic activity, polling data show that Americans are generally still afraid of the virus and have changed their…
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Regulation, Not Offshoring, Is Hindering Industry from Ramping up Production
In his latest Bloomberg column, Noah Smith argues that offshoring production led to the current shortage of medical masks and equipment in the face of…
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Liberate to Stimulate 2020: Let’s Start with Trade
The past two weeks have seen a volatile market owing to concerns over coronavirus, which suggests an economic downturn could be on the cards. The…
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Joint Employer Rule Gives Much-Needed Certainty to Franchises
The National Labor Relations Board finalized a rule last week that will bring much needed relief and certainty to the franchise industry and other industries…
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Best Books of 2019: The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
How did a joint stock company founded in Elizabethan England come to replace the glorious Mughal Empire of India, ruling that great land for a…
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Competitive Enterprise Institute Opposes USMCA Trade Agreement
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today announced its opposition to the USMCA trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada because the updated agreement…
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Growth Slows as Tariffs Bite
Economic growth slowed in the second quarter of 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It remained above 2% thanks to a combination of…
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Political Realignment Is Big Problem for Free-Market Supporters
Angela Nagle, an economic nationalist and author of “Kill All Normies,” recently argued on a podcast that, “Conservatives are starting to have these interesting debates…
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Tariffs Slow Investment, Threaten Retail Industry
Large U.S. companies slowed their investment in the first quarter of 2019, largely because of ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. This is…
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White House Uses Discredited Complaints Tactic against Social Media Companies
My colleague Wayne Crews has already slammed the White House for a first step towards government regulation of online speech in its “tech bias” complaints…
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Breaking up and Regulating Facebook: Unfair, Un-American, Unacceptable
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, former publisher of The New Republic, argues in a long essay for The New York Times that the company should be…
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Sharing Economy Is Opposite of Servant Economy
In a bleak take on the sharing economy, Atlantic writer Alexis C. Madrigal says it has created a “servant economy,” where sharing economy platforms provide…
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Move Slowly and Establish Rules: Facebook’s Call for Regulation
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s motto used to be “Move fast and break things.” Now that his company is under increased political scrutiny—and facing calls for…
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America’s Tech Regulators Should Not Follow Europe’s Lead
This week The Economist endorsed European “tech doctrine”—a combination of antitrust, tax, privacy, and regulatory policies that is rapidly being imposed on a mostly American…
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Brexit Brinkmanship
There is plenty of blame to go around for Britain’s current Brexit chaos. In a recent post, I pointed to how the Prime Minister’s handling…
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Trade, Job Losses, and Comparable Wages
One of the frequent objections posted by those who are concerned about free trade is that it leads to job losses. This is true. However,…
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Administration Looks to Make Household-Level Imports More Expensive
One of the consistent problems with the Trump administration’s trade policy is an obsession with reciprocity—if goods aren’t treated exactly the same way as imports…
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Economics of Green New Deal: More Red Than Green
My colleagues have written elsewhere about the energy and environmental components of the “Green New Deal” proposals that have been enthusiastically agreed to by most…
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Jobs Numbers Continue Generally Positive Trend
The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that the economy is continuing on a steady course, at least as far as…
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Brexit: The EU’s Gordian Knot Strangles May’s Government
When Rory Broomfield and I were examining the prospects for Britain leaving the European Union in 2014-16, we recognized that there was no easy way…