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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 Sir…
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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 been:…
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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 dropped…
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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 sued…
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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 American…
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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 programs.
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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 sees.
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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 Credit…
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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 of…
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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 that…
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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: Frederic…
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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 that…
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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 led…
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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 Safety…
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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 project.”…
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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 influence…
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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 Schmitt…
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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 would…
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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 thereafter?…
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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 another…
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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 dismissed.
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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, maker…
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Does Artificial Intelligence Have a Statist Bias?
I recently asked the ChatGPT AI to “write an essay critiquing the Biden administration’s trade policy.” This is what I got:…
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We Need to Pay More Attention to AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important emerging technologies today. It has the potential to revolutionize many industries and sectors, including health care,…
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The Founding Fathers and Free Trade
There is an ongoing small cottage industry of historical revisionism aimed at showing that America since its founding was friendly to protectionism and that this…
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CEI Leads Coalition Opposing Increased Government Interference in Rail Operations
CEI and 21 other organizations and individuals have signed a letter opposing the misleadingly named Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act, which would…
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Elon Musk’s Purchase of Twitter Stock Is an Important Reminder of How Capitalism Works
The tech world was shaken by the recent news that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, had bought up nearly one of every 10…
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Deregulation is Key to Building a Broad-Based Economy
Critics of free market economic policy often point to declines in manufacturing employment or, worse, to the “hollowing-out” of the American middle class as evidence…
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Reciprocal Switching Is a Bad Idea at a Bad Time
The Surface Transportation Board has resurrected a bad idea it considered in 2012 and 2016—mandated reciprocal switching for freight railroads. For background, you can’t do…
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Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority Is Becoming a Global Problem
When British supporters of Brexit talked of “global Britain,” they probably didn’t have in mind British bureaucrats dictating to the world how businesses should be…
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Happy Constitution Day!
When I was a civil servant in the United Kingdom, I had a friend who worked at the Ministry of Defence. Part of his duties…
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UK’s Attempt to Block a Merger Between American Firms Could Cripple Innovation
As I explain in both an op-ed and regulatory comments submitted yesterday, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s version…
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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Shows Much of What’s Wrong with Congress
Although it now looks unlikely, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D_NY) wants the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, popularly known as the bipartisan infrastructure bill,…
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What Do We Want from Our Platforms?
Two recently introduced House bills seek to restructure antitrust law, supposedly to tackle purported abuses by “big tech” firms. They aim to change how the…
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Is the Biden Administration Socialist?
One of the points I make in The Socialist Temptation is that today’s “democratic socialists” don’t really know what they mean by socialism. Nor…
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Secretary Pete Scores an Own Goal
It should have been an open goal. Everyone agrees that the nation’s highways need more funding. Everyone agrees that the gas tax has passed its…
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Debate over Vaccination Passports Gathers Steam in Europe and United Kingdom
The concept of a “vaccination passport” was raised in the European Union (EU) early in the pandemic. EU documents show a timetable for discussion of…
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Adam Smith Slavery Controversy Can be Settled by his Writings
According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, the grave of Adam Smith in his home city of Edinburgh has been included in a citywide review as…
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UK Court Ruling on Uber will Mean Fewer, More Expensive Rides, and Fewer Jobs
Today, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled on an important question as to whether certain drivers who work with Uber are entitled to…
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The New CFPB Leadership Should Avoid Rate Caps on Small Dollar Loans
With new leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), there is rising concern that there will be renewed attempts to cap effective interest rates…
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The Danger in Blurring the Private and Public Boundaries with Government Regulation
The recent decisions of many technology companies to remove users and customers from their platforms have deeply divided Americans. Many Americans feel censored and discriminated…
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Amazon’s Private Labels Don’t Threaten Competition
A recent Wall Street Journal article raises concerns about Amazon’s generics offerings and the online retailer’s business practices surrounding diaper sales. In evaluating…
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Some Frequently Asked Questions about Socialism
During my virtual “tour” for the release of my book, The Socialist Temptation, certain questions came up regularly. I have already set out my…
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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…
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Great Jobs Numbers Don’t Assuage Trade War Worries
Today’s jobs numbers were a surprise to everyone—312,000 jobs added in December was almost twice the consensus view of economists of 176,000. Strong wage growth…
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Year in Review 2018: Trade Policy
2018 was the year in which President Trump began to implement his campaign promises of using tariffs to change America’s trade policy. The ostensible reason…
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Year in Review 2018: Antitrust
If 2018 was a bad year for antitrust skeptics, 2019 promises to be worse. We must hope that the Federal Trade Commission and Department of…
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Don’t Blame Google for a Feature Consumers Want
It’s very rare I disagree with the great freedom-loving journalist John Stossel, but his column at Townhall this week made me raise an eyebrow. In…
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Britain’s Treaty of Versailles
“Vote leave, take control” was the slogan of the “leave” campaign during the run-up to the vote on whether the United Kingdom should exit the…
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What Do the Midterms Mean for Big Tech?
For the big technology firms, the midterm elections were never going to change much. Whatever the result, they were going to face more scrutiny over the…
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August Brought 201,000 New Jobs, but Future Gains Threatened by Trade Restrictions
The U.S. economy added 201,000 jobs in August, the U.S. Labor Department announced today. Good news, but impending trade restrictions could put a damper…
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U.S. Should Re-engage with World Trade Organization for Everyone’s Sake
Last week, President Trump threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization, which he called “the single worst trade deal ever made.” …
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Will New NAFTA Be More Protectionist or Less?
This week has seen some swift movement in the talks surrounding the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On Monday, the President held…
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Brexit Britain Provides Opportunity for New Style of U.S. Trade Agreement
Despite its reliance on raising tariff barriers as a weapon in trade negotiation, the U.S. will soon have the opportunity to negotiate a new free…
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World Trade: The Special Case of China
While free trade with all nations is the avowed goal of both free traders (as we outline in our paper, Traders of the Lost Ark)…
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Rediscovering a Moral and Economic Case for Free Trade
In our new paper, “Traders of the Lost Ark,” my Competitive Enterprise Institute colleagues and I attempt to articulate a strong moral and economic…
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New Jobs Numbers Suggest There’s More Work to Do on Free-Market Reform
At an unemployment rate of 3.9%, it should be expected that job growth will slow. Employers around the country are reporting that they are unable…
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The Platform Economy Can Change the World
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute launches its new video about the platform economy. Platforms are an ancient way of doing business—think of matchmakers, city fairs,…
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Continue Supply-Side Policies to Maintain Economic Growth
As my colleague Ryan Young says, four percent economic growth is wonderful news. It provides yet more evidence that free-market, supply-side policies work, and…
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Driving Innovation: Timbro Index Charts Scope of Global Sharing Economy
The Swedish think tank Timbro has published the first global index of the sharing economy. The Timbro Sharing Economy Index (TSEI) is the…
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Britain’s Brexit Challenge Gets Harder—and It’s Britain’s Fault
Leaving a regional trade bloc is much more difficult than entering it, as the United Kingdom is finding out. The European Union has integrated itself…
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It’s Magna Carta Day!
In a peaceful English meadow made riotous by armed camps, King John sealed Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English liberty, 803 years ago…
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It’s Not “Us vs. Them” at the G7 Meeting
Tit-for-tat retaliation for trade tariffs is a losing game for both sides. Exports are the way we pay for imports of the things we want.
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A New Bibliography for the Platform Economy
The future has arrived, and it is a radically different economy. Havas Media’s Tom Goodwin pointed out in 2015, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi…
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How to Encourage Tech Competition: Deregulate Finance
It’s May Day, and in the pages of the New York Times appears a paean to the halcyon days of the 1930s, urging a…
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More Evidence of Growth in February Job Figures
Today’s jobs numbers shattered expectations—313,000 new jobs in February against an expectation of 200,000. The numbers provide yet more support to the…
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Trump’s Recent Trade Decisions Could Spell Doom for the Economy
With President Trump’s announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs and his continued wrong-headed approach to trade policy, there are reasons to be concerned that a…
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Job and GDP Growth Numbers Signal Improving Economy
Today’s jobs numbers, which were modestly above expectations, are yet another sign that the economy is starting to pick up steam as a result of…
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Theory and Practice Argue We Should Abolish Antitrust Laws
Laws about competition should be restricted to laws preventing government from playing favorites. Government-erected barriers against competition or innovation need to be torn down. As…
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New Evidence on the Effects of Teacher Unions
At a time when minimum wage laws are causing opportunities for unskilled young people to disappear, it is all the more vital that education provides…
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The Top Five Reforms in Financial Regulation Needed in 2018
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at last pulling back from its regulatory assault on the financial services industry, conditions are right for major…