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Neutering the Net
The Washington Examiner has published my op-ed on net neutrality: A war is waging over the future of the Internet. On one…
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UBS-IRS deal — U.S. Constitutional liberties, privacy rights at risk after Obama bullies the Swiss
Lawyers for the U.S. government and the Swiss bank UBS AG have announced that they have reached a deal…
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Smart Is As Smart Does
This picture accompanying this post is doing the rounds on the internet. The commentary normally reads: Below is a…
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As Long As It’s Free
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Regulation of the Day 30: Labeling Mustard
If your company makes mustard bottles that are reusable as beer mugs, you are specifically required to put a country-of-origin label on your product.
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John Berlau on the future of GM
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Policy Peril Segment 7: Fuel economy standards
Today’s excerpt from CEI’s film, Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself, is on two global warming policies Congress…
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NCAA V. Delaware Sports Gambling
Over the past few months the NCAA, along with the four major pro-sports leagues, has been a vocal opponent of Delaware’s attempts to legalize per-game…
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Trustbusters should call off fishing expedition in Microsoft-Yahoo deal
In today’s Seattle Times, CEI Information Policy Analyst Ryan Radia and CEI Policy Fellow Jonathan Hillel talk…
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The Truth About Town Hall Meetings
Yesterday, the Obama administration distanced itself from some of the more outrageous comments made by congressional Democrats, including one made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…
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“Join Your Fellow Pervs for Some Explicit, Twisted Fun” Courtesy of Obama’s Stimulus Package
“Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun,” urged a recipient of more than $25,000 from Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, which…
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LibertyWeek 55: The Health Care Mob Is Coming!
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Mr. President, Time to call out the National Guard!
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They Can’t Even Keep Drugs Out of Prison?
Armed guards. All the bad guys behind bars. Under constant supervision. And Mexico still can’t keep drugs and drug dealing out of its prisons.
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Child Killer Escapes Punishment: “Mom of starved Md. child to be released after plea”
A Baltimore mother who deliberately starved her one-year-old son to death will soon be released after pleading guilty, reports the Associated Press in the…
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All Community Organizing Is Astroturfing – And That’s Fine!
The fact that members of Congress extolling the president’s plan are attacking astroturfers while leaving their arguments alone says to me that the Congressmen believe…
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Why Intel’s Billion Dollar Fine Violates Human Rights Convention
Intel alleges that its due process rights were violated by a massive $1.45 billion fine recently imposed as a result of a one-sided antitrust investigation…
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Deceptive Obama Health-Care Plan Worsens the Status Quo, Explodes Costs, Say Washington Post Columnists
The Washington Post endorsed Obama — indeed, it hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president since 1952 — but a lot of Washington Post columnists are…
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“Millions of jobs are at stake on both sides of the border”
So says British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell. At a meeting of Canada’s provincial premiers held in Regina, Saskatchewan, last week, slapping retaliatory tariffs on…
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Regulation of the Day 29: Protecting Us from Cheap Foreign Goods
Sometimes (but not always), when a foreign producer sells goods to U.S. consumers cheaply, the U.S. government takes action to put a stop to it.
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Hate Crime in St. Louis? Obama Backers Beat Up Black Critic of Health-Care “Reform,” Use Racial Slurs
Kenneth Gladney, a black critic of Obama’s health-care plan, was beaten, kicked, and called racist names by members of the SEIU, a…
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Deficit Rises $880 Billion to Record $1.3 Trillion, Due to Massive, Unprecedented Government Spending
The federal budget deficit has already risen by $880 billion to an unprecedented $1.3 trillion. Most of the increase is attributable to recent…
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Inconvenient Evidence Suppressed in EU-Intel Antitrust Case
The EU’s top antitrust regulator intentionally suppressed “potentially exculpatory" evidence in its case against Intel. This is the rule of men, not law.
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Policy Translated: Health Care Reform
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bvnay1DhYM 285 234]…
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We’re All Children Now
I propose the following rule: “Think of the children” rhetoric shall be reserved for those situations in which the author is not, in…
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Policy Peril Segment 6: Cap and Trade (Updated August 25, 2009)
Today’s excerpt from CEI’s film, Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself, is on cap-and-trade. What is cap and trade? Cap-and-trade…
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Krugman: Town Hall mobsters are probably racists and “birthers”
“The Town Hall Mob.” That’s the title of Paul Krugman’s opinion piece in the New York Times today – and it’s a doozy. In…
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Back to Basics: the Future of Air Travel
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Regulation of the Day 28: Urine Trouble Now
Want to work for HHS? You’ll have to comply with approximately 32,463 words worth of regulations in the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing…
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APA: If You’re Not Green, See A Shrink
The American Psychological Association’s “Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change” published its report this week: Many people are taking…
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Reporting the Hidden Costs of Stimulus
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Dissent Is Still the Highest Form of Patriotism, Right?
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Liberal Congressional Leaders Buy Luxury Jets, Trash the Environment
Congress plans to spend $200 million on luxury jets for liberal House leaders, even though it earlier denounced the automakers for having corporate…
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“Markets fail. Use markets.”
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Microsoft, Yahoo, and Antitrust
If regulations are to be effective, they must be either clear or silent; antitrust statutes are neither. That alone is reason enough to urge trustbusters…
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Regulation of the Day 27: Beekeeping in South Dakota
Beekeeping in South Dakota is illegal without a license.
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Policy Peril Segment 5: Is the Science Debate “Over”? Updated 08/17/09
Today’s post in my series of commentaries on excerpts from CEI’s film, Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself,…
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A Poster too Important to Leave to the Market
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is giving away copies of a poster (pictured right) of Barack Obama, which it describes as “an original…
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DE on Defense against Sports Leagues
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Policy Translated: Corporate Social Responsibility
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The Truth About Global Warming: Feedbacks
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZtbz2U9-c 285 234]…
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Brooklyn Land Grab Opponents Allege Government Corruption
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), a group opposed to the taxpayer-financed development project Atlantic Yards, filed a motion with the New York Court of…
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Obama Health-Care Plan Contains Affirmative-Action and Subsidies for Left-Wing Community Organizers Like ACORN
The massively-costly health-care reform bills backed by Obama are riddled with provisions mandating “preference” for organizations that exhibit “cultural competency,” a politically-correct…
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Carney on Cash for Clunkers
Former CEI Warren Brookes Fellow Tim Carney, highlights the high cost of the Cash for Clunkers program, which I wrote about here…
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Today’s Unintentionally Funny Headline
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The return of Grand Theft Auto: Class Action
With a million dollars of attorneys’ fees at stake, the trial lawyers in the infamous Grand Theft Auto case appealed the lower…
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Regulation of the Day 26: Fortune Telling in Maryland
You need a license to tell fortunes in Annapolis, Maryland.
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Health-Care “Reform” Always Costs More Than Promised
The depressing truth, as told by former Congressman Tim Penny (D-MN) and former Senator Rudy Boschwitz (R-MN).
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Union Bosses Say the Darndest Things
As described in an OpenMarket post by CEI’s Ivan Osorio a couple weeks ago, the Teamsters union and UPS are currently lobbying Congress to…
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Cash for Clunkers’ Real Cost
As Frederic Bastiat succinctly noted long ago, when determining the effects of a specific action, it is necessary to consider not only “what is…
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Chuck Schumer: “We’ve Got to Stand Still”
High-frequency stock trading — the markets where sophisticated algorithms running on bleeding edge hardware trade assets using information only fractions of a second old —…
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Freedom Anniversary: The Acquittal of John Peter Zenger
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Regulation of the Day 25: Cattle with Scabies
If you own cattle and they are at risk of catching scabies, you may want to read up on the pertinent federal regulations. There are…
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The Environment’s “Odd Couple”: Sustainable Use and Private Management
Chaffee County, Colorado currently has the opportunity to engage in an advantageous business partnership, but environmental groups are attempting to derail this proposition that…
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Frivolous Lawsuit Against Denny’s Over Salty Food
Denny's has never claimed that it serves only health-food, and nutrition facts about its food are available on its web site. But that hasn't…
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British Government Pays Lobbyists to Lobby It on Climate Change
More proof that government does things better! In traditional “astroturfing,” a company would pay a PR firm to set up a fake grassroots organization aimed…
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The Right to a Green Job?
Demand for wind turbine blades in Europe has slipped, apparently, so a British company that makes them, Vestas, has plans to let go 625 workers…
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End the Letter Delivery Monopoly: Sell The USPS
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion…
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LibertyWeek 54: Read My Lips
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Policy Translated: Technology Regulation
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Turn out the lights, the party’s over… and tomorrow start the same old thing again.
Cuba has become more and more destitute since the revolution and has fallen on hard times since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a period…
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Policy Peril Segment 4 – Sea Level Rise
In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore warns that global warming could raise sea levels by 20 feet, and he implies that this could…
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FDA to Smokers: Drop Dead
The FDA is now moving towards banning a smoking alternative that could save many lives. Every year, millions of smokers like my wife try…
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Who’s a climate scientist? Depends on which side you’re on.
I was interested to read an item in today’s Climate Wire about a new report by “a prominent Australian scientist.” Andrew Macintosh of the…
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The Antitrust Anachronism
Wall Street Journal columnist Gordon Crovitz has a great column in today's paper on the anachronism that is antitrust law. He writes: "Markets were so…
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Newsflash to FCC: The iPhone is a Closed Platform, and Consumers Love It
Just when you thought the FCC’s investigation of the wireless industry couldn’t get any stranger, TechCrunch reports that the Commission has sent letters…
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Policy Translated: The Homeowners’ Defense Act
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmzVgg0tpmo 285 234]…
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Billions More for Wasteful Auto Bailouts
The auto bailouts keep expanding. Billions more are going to be spent on wealthy auto-dealers, cash-for-clunkers, politically-correct cars few people will buy, and excessive benefits…
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The Antitrust Religion still Has Many Adherents
Why bother with the ongoing challenge of competing in the marketplace if one can merely go to Brussels or Washington?…
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Ebell ranked in top 10 of most-respected global warming skeptics
Myron Ebell may be enemy #1 to the current climate change community. Ebell works for the free-market thinktank Competitive Enterprise Institute and, according to his…
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Regulation of the Day 24: The Width of Ladders
It is illegal for a portable metal ladder to have steps narrower than 12 inches.
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Bonus pay bill: CBO predicts huge costs to private sector, broad swaths of employees affected
After the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated the enormous costs of an all-encompassing health care scheme with a bloated public option, members of Congress…
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Penn and Teller on Organics
The irreverent and hilarious comedians Penn and Teller have produced another episode of their television show Bullshit about organic foods. Friends of CEI, Ron Bailey…
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Policy Peril Segment 3 – Hurricanes (updated 8/19/09)
Is global warming making hurricanes more destructive? Did global warming contribute to the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina? Would Kyoto-style energy rationing help avert future weather-related catastrophes?…
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Argumentum Ad Governmentum
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More on the Microhoo Deal
The long-awaited collaboration of Microsoft and Yahoo on search has the tech business community abuzz. CEI analysts Wayne Crews and Ryan Young made their original…
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California’s Biofuels Policy: Yes, No, or Both
The Los Angeles Times‘ Judith Lewis relates an amusing example of how government can undermine its own harebrained schemes. It was a fine June…
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(Un)Free Press Sticks it to the Essentials
The latest missive from the folks at Free Press has crossed the line: When challenged, the wireless carriers actually compare their industry to another: soda.
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The Obama’s Administration’s Strange Double Standards on Hate Crimes, Terrorism, and Health Care: Soft on the Guilty, Cruel to the Innocent, Unfair to Taxpayers
When black panthers were caught on videotape menacing white voters in Philadelphia, using nightsticks and racial epithets to drive them away from the polls,…
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A Bailout for the First Amendment?
Dan Rather actually made the following two contradictory statements in the same speech: I personally encourage the president to establish a White House…
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Prof. Gates’ property rights likely violated in arrest — but Obama was wrong to weigh in
Amid all the endless media psychobabble about “national conversations” and “teachable moments” – and we will no doubt here more of this in the reporting of…
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Food Safety Bills Moving Through Congress
With all out attention diverted to the government's attempted takeover of the half of US health care that isn't already nationalized, the attempted destruction of…
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In Which Greed Is Good
The great economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote that "[F]ree trade is the cement that holds together the idea of peace." His logic is sound. Commerce gives…
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The Challenge of Network Industries
“Network” industries such as electricity, air transport, telecommunication, freight rail, and internet services face a challenge with their competing flow and grid components. Flows are…
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In Defense of Average Cost Pricing
Many industries in the modern economy are ridiculed for the financing strategies they employ. Only marginal cost pricing is defended as a legitimate practice. Yet…
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Where’s the Reality in Legislation?
In “Why Obamacare Is Sinking,” Charles Krauthammer argues that President Obama’s reliance on rhetoric is finally beginning to fail because “you can’t fake it…
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VIDEO: Healthcare Reform Ideas from the Other Washington
John Barnes at the Washington Policy Center (motto: “Improving Lives Through Market Solutions”) passes on a 3-video series about the fight over healthcare “reform” we’re…
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Russia introduces strict new antitrust law
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev has signed into law amendments that will bring increased penalties for price collusion and unfair competition. The new amendments will allow…
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Three Cheers for Capitalism and Peter Leeson
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UBS v. IRS saga continues
Today, Wall Street Journal reports that a Miami court has set meeting Friday between the IRS and UBS to look at…
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Policy Translated: Special Access Reform
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQO84UjQ2Fg 285 234]…
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Regulation of the Day 23: Texting While Driving
Texting while driving is both dumb and dangerous. But making it a crime won’t make people stop doing it. It will merely make more people…
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LibertyWeek 53: The Real Crooks of New Jersey
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Movement on the U.S.-Korea FTA?
It looks like things may be moving – slowly — on the trade front. The U. S. Trade Representative has published a notice in…
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Obama Backs Imperial Presidency
Obama is backing an imperial presidency in Honduras. When Honduras removed its ex-president and would-be dictator, Obama demanded his reinstatement, even though he…
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Justice Dept. Should Leave the Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Alone
Statements of Ryan Young and Wayne Crews Washington, D.C., July 29, 2009 – Today, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a ten-year partnership of their…
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Policy Translated: Stimulus to Nowhere
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Food Police Attack Denny’s Over Salt
It seems that the food police at the unconscionably named Center for Science in the Public Interest are at it again. Last week, CSPI filed…
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Ameritrade Stock Spam Settlement briefing
Unlike the Bluetooth case, we were among several plaintiffs who filed substantive objections to this settlement. The hearing will be before Judge Vaughn Walker…
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Best Way to Curb Irrational Exurberance?
Zachary Goldfarb, a Washington Post staff writer, discusses (p. A10, “SEC Moves to Limit Short Sales of Stocks”) this SEC proposal – sympathetically. The article…