The Open Market Blog

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/31/2007

This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the Law of the Sea Treaty to the Senate floor for ratification. The…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/31/2007

Congress is set to pass a bloated farm bill that will increase federal sugar subsidies, which have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and prevent…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/31/2007

Trial lawyers have brought lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages against telephone companies for assisting federal antiterrorism surveillance programs. In today’s Washington Post, Senator…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/30/2007

On the eve of All Hallow’s Eve, the Boston Globe‘s list of the “Top 50 scariest movies of all time” is worth a…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/30/2007

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepares to take up the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST; also known as UNCLOS, for United Nations…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 10/30/2007

In Today’s Washington Post, Cindy Skrzycki reports on Devra Davis’s book The Secret History of the War on Cancer. According to Skrzycki, Davis asserts…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

How you can profit from the coming nuclear holocaust will likely be the next publication by the conservative site Newsmax. After all, it just sent…

• By: Christopher C. Horner
• 10/30/2007

Today one presidential aspirant joined a growing list of senators in opposing U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Taking as long as…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/30/2007

The full Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has just rejected a challenge to an earlier ruling that the District of Columbia’s Prescription Drug…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/30/2007

Eli–Re your post on the Robosaurus, I like these better. The one above weighs about 104,000 lbs. and the one below…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/30/2007

The moderately conservative Judge Thomas Meskill has died, eliminating one of the few non-liberal judges on the New York-based Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/30/2007

The other side of India’s boom is the corruption and lack of protection of rights for the poor. This story from NPR about a…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/30/2007

Nice commentary by Jonathan Chait on Marketplace last week about the problem with farm subsidies.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/30/2007

Wealthy trial lawyer William Lerach, a big donor to liberal politicians who specialized in bringing class action lawsuits, has pled guilty to giving kickbacks.

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/30/2007

As EU allows four more GMO crops (crops created with molecular plant breeding techniques), the new president of France puts a temporary “freeze”…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

It appears that the Communist Party of China occasionally makes a mistake. Too bad millions of people already have paid a price and millions more…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

The health care mess is complicated. It's a strange mix of government and private, with perverse tax incentives skewing the entire system. Handing the whole…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/29/2007

One of the most interesting entries into the debate over the Law of the Sea Treaty during the last few days comes from…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/29/2007

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled the Law of the Sea Treaty for a possible vote this Wednesday, and both opponents and…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/29/2007

Owner of one of the largest food retailers in Norway, Trond Lykke says organic food is selfish because it requires more land area and…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/29/2007

Regulatory insanity in the EU has been halted for another four years thanks to a concerted effort by lobby groups. The EU will, for now,…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/29/2007

If you have an extra $2.5 million to spare, you can become the proud owner of The Robosaurus. Some specs from the web…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/29/2007

The Supreme Court is weighing the $2.5 billion punitive damage award against Exxon arising out of an oil spill, which occurred as a result of…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/29/2007

The Washington Post has a news story Sunday about how teen pregnancies have fallen in Washington, D.C., and nearby suburbs since 1996 — a…

• By: Gregory Conko
• 10/29/2007

So far as I can tell, it’s gotten no attention whatsoever, but today is the 25th Anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/29/2007

Today, I have a piece in American Thinker on how environmental regulations, much more than global warming, were likely a factor in the intensity…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

The problems of the health care system are many and complex--burdensome state regulation, massive federal programs, counterproductive tax incentives, and the popular presumption that health…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

It's time to pull out the world's smallest violin for The Nation magazine. They are lefties, but at a time when the conservative establishment is…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/29/2007

Halloween will be a little scarier this year. Along with the other horrifying regulations on this Wednesday's schedule we can now…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

Trade sanctions are a favorite foreign policy tool, but they don't have a very good record. It's hard to find a case where sanctions forced…

• By: Gregory Conko
• 10/29/2007

The Italian language version of my book, The Frankenfood Myth, co-written with CEI adjunct scholar and Hoover Institution fellow Henry I. Miller, was…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/26/2007

Okay, here’s a government action I can agree with: Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff ordered 16 dairies in Pennsylvania to correct their milk…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/26/2007

In his now weekly DC Examiner Friday column, Tim Carney, CEI's 2005-2006 Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow, looks at just who exactly stands to most…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/26/2007

We thought President Reagan had killed it, but it keeps coming back — “it” being the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which Reagan…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/26/2007

It may be a forlorn hope that politicians of either party will ever be truly fiscally responsible, opposing spending programs that either are not authorized…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/26/2007

There is no McDonald's in Ethiopia. Perhaps if there was, 3000000 people would not die this year from malnutrition. In a world where poverty…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/26/2007

There's nothing new about partisans playing hardball when it comes to politics. But it is unusual when partisans attempt to jail their opponents. That apparently…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/26/2007

People often denounce the profit motive as harsh and unfeeling. Only volunteer or government offered aid is supposedly offered with the sincere desire to help.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/25/2007

The Commission that selects administrative law judges (ALJs) in Washington, D.C. is leaning towards not reappointing Roy Pearson, the ALJ who brought a $54…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/25/2007

“Time to ditch Kyoto” says a commentary in Nature magazine’s October 25 issue. The article, written by Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, points…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/25/2007

California wildfires have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, caused death and destruction, and consumed more than 700 square miles of land.

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/25/2007

Cato’s Center for Trade Policy Studies has just released a study by Dan Griswold showing that increased trade is not responsible for a lower…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/25/2007

The new SCHIP bill set for a vote today, attempts to woo Republicans by prohibiting illegal immigrants from enrolling in the program. These changes don’t…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 10/24/2007

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/24/2007

The Wall Street Journal today carries an opinion piece by Stephen J. Rose (subscription required), a labor economist with the Progressive Policy Institute, titled…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/24/2007

The European Commission is taking Finland to court to try to force it to ban the sale of snus, a form of smokeless tobacco.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/24/2007

MSN says that Merrill Lynch wrote down the value of its mortgage holdings by nearly $8 billion just in the past quarter, producing a…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 10/24/2007

Comcast is under fire again, this time for spoofing network packets to stop its users from uploading using peer-to-peer software. The technology Comcast…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/24/2007

Hans, excellent points about the folly of a government-organized bailout. Indeed the Dow had gone back to 14,000 the week before Paulson opened his…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/24/2007

I am sick and tired of waiting for my morning cup of coffee. At the joint I go to (which shall remain nameless) I can…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/24/2007

A New York Times article today poses the question of whether or not regulatory oversight has been too lax on the meat packaging industry.

• By: William Yeatman
• 10/24/2007

The developed world’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for miracle fuels made from food is pushing Russia further towards authoritarianism. The Financial Times today reports that…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

The bloated farm bill making its way through the new Congress is not only a budget-buster. It is chock full of corporate welfare…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/23/2007

Don Boudreaux over at CafeHayek is outraged at an off-the-wall, gratuitous attack on Norman Borlaug in Alexander Cockburn’s latest diatribe appearing in the…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/23/2007

London Times columnist Sarah Baxter offers an amusing anecdote that illustrates what happens when two incompatible, yet equally illiberal, ideologies collide. A glorious…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/23/2007

My article on organized labor’s response to the rise of private equity is now online at TCSDaily.  Private equity presents a unique challenge for…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

300,000 people have fled their homes in California owing to out-of-control fires that have consumed more than 384 square miles of land. Those fires…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

The use of torture overseas in enemy interrogations has attracted considerable opposition, for good reason. Military interrogators have recently criticized the practice, saying it is…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/23/2007

To the surprise of nobody, CBS canceled the bizarre murder mystery/musical/comedy Viva Laughlin after dismal ratings this past Sunday. Yes, the show was…

• By: Clyde Wayne Crews
• 10/23/2007

Alan Weisman, author of World Without Us describes what would happen to the planet if we weren’t on it in this interview. I would…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 10/22/2007

It’s always humorous to read stories of outrage during periods of rationing. The same people outraged by the water shortage in the Southeast don’t…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 10/22/2007

Facebook has “voluntarily” agreed to warn users about explicit images and redouble its efforts to combat obscenity as part of a settlement with…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/22/2007

The U.S. government is urging Turkey not to invade the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq after Turkish Kurdish separatists based on northern Iraq killed…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/22/2007

MSN and The Economist point out the deep flaws of the bail-out fund backed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that would try to…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 10/22/2007

• 10/22/2007

Here’s further proof that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their collectives are clueless. Embroiled in a silly debate over what species residing…

• By: Clyde Wayne Crews
• 10/22/2007

An engaging oped in yesterday’s Washington Post Outlook section is entitled “I Just Couldn’t Sacrifice My Son.” It’s about the state of public schooling…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 10/19/2007

You know things are bad when elected officials find it perfectly acceptable to call millions of Americans — including some of their own constituents —…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 10/19/2007

Normally I’m a fan of celebrity chef Mario Batali. His appearances on Iron Chef America are always entertaining, and he’s got a great sense…

• By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.
• 10/19/2007

In this post, I comment on Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen's opening statement, “America's Energy Future Is at a Crossroads,” at this week's “Cellulosic…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

My earlier post about the incompetence of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which generally fails to detect explosive ingredients and fake bombs, was understated.

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Today's Financial Times has an -- unintentionally -- hilarious op ed by James Wilsdon of the think tank Demos, on how Muslim societies…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

The administration of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has blocked a new power plant from being built, despite looming energy shortages, because, like virtually all…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Hugo Chavez’s insistences notwithstanding, not everyone in Venezuela is enamored of Che Guevara, as Australia’s Herald Sun reports: A GROUP of Venezuelans shattered…

• By: Julie Walsh
• 10/19/2007

In “Housing Construction Plunges” (Examiner, October 18, 2007), the author, Martin Crutsinger, correctly identifies the reasons for the current problems in the ever-important housing…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Neil Clark, who usually writes for the Guardian, on his blog, mocks what he calls another commenter’s “over the top” Che Guevara analogy. And…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

Since the government took over aviation security since 9/11, security has actually gotten worse. Fake bombs usually pass undetected by the Transportation Security Administration…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/19/2007

The upholding of Bush’s SCHIP veto is no big victory for spending control. As reported in Time magazine online on Wednesday, Bush wasn’t exactly…

• 10/18/2007

Today, the House Natural Resources Committee is considering the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, sponsored by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT).

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 10/18/2007

Today’s USA Today reports on the growing trend among city lawmakers to tax, ban, and otherwise regulate bottled water. CEI recently highlighted the absurdity…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The House of Representatives just failed to override Bush’s veto of a bill that would have greatly expanded the cost and scope of the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The Financial Times has an article on how the agricultural subsidies contained in the Farm Bill seemingly promote obesity by encouraging the production and…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/18/2007

Alex, I mostly agree with your post but, well, I think that private enforcement of law in Medieval Iceland is an example of exactly…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

CEI’s The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General described how wealthy trial lawyers like the indicted Milberg Weiss law firm have bankrolled state…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/18/2007

Today the house is expected to vote to override President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill—which would increase the funding by…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

Michael Cannon lists the nine cardinal sins of the federal SCHIP health care program, whose exploding costs led President Bush to veto a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia recently upheld an FCC ruling that deregulated high-speed internet service over traditional phone lines. The…

• By: Iain Murray
• 10/17/2007

This one takes the cake. If there was a Nobel Prize for Absurd Assertions (hmmm, perhaps there is) RFK Jr would win it hands down…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today discussing all the ways that expanded ethanol production resulting from costly federal ethanol subsidies is harming…

• By: Iain Murray
• 10/17/2007

He didn’t win the Eleanor Roosevelt prize this year. But somebody equally worthy did.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

Mortgage lenders face a Hobson’s Choice. When a lender doesn’t provide mortgage loans to people in high-crime areas with high default rates, that’s considered racist…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

At Slate, Tim Wu explores how the federal criminal code has become so vast that almost anyone can be prosecuted for violating some obscure…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 10/17/2007

Reuters released a story today about Professor Eric Maskin, one of three American economists to receive the Nobel prize for economics. In it…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/17/2007

A world where there’s not enough electricity. This story I found in the Philadelphia Inquirer this weekend is a view into where life will…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

As I explain below, federal meddling will merely delay the mortgage meltdown and make the ultimate implosion of the mortgage industry all the worse.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Mortgage-backed securities have collapsed in value, and aren't worth as much as once thought. That's becoming clear as increasing numbers of homeowners default on their…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Volunteer fire departments would be endangered by a union-backed bill that has overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives and now is pending in the…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/16/2007

Government finances are suffering, spending on the Iraq war continues to escalate while Social Security and Medicare continue to head over the financial cliff. Yet…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/15/2007

Wayne told me about an NPR story about credit unions getting into the payday loan alternative business. My only comment is: Why didn’t they…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 10/15/2007

The white space debate is intensifying, with the National Association of Broadcasters running television ads showing a grandmother watching pixilated football thanks to unlicensed wireless…