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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Federal Register took Christmas Eve off, and here’s hoping everyone had a happy holiday season. One more week to go in 2021. The…
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Best Books of 2021: Keith E. Stanovich, The Bias that Divides Us: The Science and Politics of Myside Thinking (MIT Press, 2021)
Today’s political polarization isn’t just annoying; it’s damaging important cultural and family institutions. And tensions won’t deescalate until people figure out the root of…
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Best Books of 2021: Ryan Bourne, Economics in One Virus (Cato Institute, 2021) and Caleb Fuller, There Is No Free Lunch (Freiling, 2021)
Economists are an unpopular bunch. One reason for this is that much of their job is putting parameters on people’s utopias. Spending more…
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What’s Ahead for Regulation in 2022?
There are two questions about the coming year in regulation. The first is what will happen. The second is what should happen. What…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Two big pieces of good news last week were the Senate’s decision to shelve the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better spending bill and…
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Have a Regulated Holiday Season!
The Code of Federal Regulations is 185,984 pages long, according to my colleague Wayne Crews’s Ten Thousand Commandmentsreport. It consists of 50 titles…
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Senate Shelves Build Back Better Spending Bill, For Now
The Senate will not vote on the Build Back Better (BBB) spending bill this year, though they might take it up again next…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new regulations this year topped 3,000, ending the week at 3,068, and the 2021 Federal Register topped 70,000 pages. Inflation went…
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Inflation Increases to 6.8 percent, Misery Index Reaches 11
October’s inflation reading was the highest since the recession of 1991. November’s is the highest since the 1982 recession, at an annualized 6.8…
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Can Regional Trade Agreements Replace the WTO?
Trade policy is in a bad place right now, with two consecutive protectionist administrations in the U.S. and the World Trade Organization (WTO) possibly…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations this year will pass 3,000 this week, with more than three weeks still to go. The Omicron variant…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a short work week because of Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging from blood lancets to crash test dummies. On…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The House passed a $1.85 trillion spending bill, which a 50-50 Senate will now consider. An Alzheimer’s vaccine began human trials. If…
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Court Strikes Down Trump Tariff: Precedent for Institution-Level Changes?
Pessimism reigns for trade liberalization in the short run, but there is fresh hope for the long run. A new court decision over solar…
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Review of Michael Munger, The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2021)
Transaction costs are one of the most overlooked ideas in economics. They are also one of the most important. The lowering of transaction costs…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Children can now receive COVID-19 vaccinations, which is good news all around. The economy gained 531,000 jobs in October, showing once again why Congress’…
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How to Fill 10 Million Vacant Jobs
Would raising the minimum wage help to fill the more than 10 million job vacancies currently open? It makes some intuitive sense—higher pay will…
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Steel, Aluminum Tariffs to Remain Above Pre-Trump Levels
It is not asking much to undo President Trump’s doubling of U.S. tariffs, which are a major contributor to today’s supply network crisis. But…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Third quarter GDP growth was an estimated at 2 percent, down from about 6 percent the previous two quarters. The 2021 Federal Register…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved COVID-19 booster shots for adults over 65, or with certain medical conditions, or who have…
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I, Pencil Meets Today’s Political Realignment
Conservatives are different than they were just a few years ago, and it isn’t just because of Trump, who is more a symptom than…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a four-day week, the economy got mixed news on employment and inflation, a dubious new antitrust bill was announced, and…
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The Radicalism of “Build Back Better” Is the Crisis that Classical Liberals Must Not Let Go to Waste
If the mantra of the day is, “Never let crisis go to waste,” then what are we to do when artificial crisis is being…
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Sen. Klobuchar’s Half-Baked Antitrust Bill
A famous scene in the 1990s comedy movie Half Baked has a young Jon Stewart musing about how different everyday activities can be…
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IRS Licensing of Tax Preparers Is Ripe for Abuse
Roughly a quarter of all jobs in America now require some sort of occupational license. Sixty years ago, it was about one job…
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September Inflation Remains High and Fixable
Inflation remains high, with September’s numbers coming in at a 5.4 percent annualized rate, the highest number in a decade. The Federal Reserve’s…
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The 2021 Economics Nobels: The Importance of Empiricism, and its Limits
The economics Nobel is given to individuals, but it often really intends to recognize schools of thought or methodological approaches. That is the case…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Katherine Tai, the new U.S. Trade Representative, gave a major speech affirming President Biden’s commitment to former President Trump’s trade protectionism. Facebook’s website…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress averted a government shutdown and continued to negotiate over nearly $5 trillion in combined spending. Merck announced an antiviral pill for COVID-19…