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Hands Off the Carbon Credit Business!
A well-reported front page story in today’s Washington Post shows that the indulgence–oops, I mean Carbon Credit Offset industry–doesn’t always work as advertised. Many…
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Climate Change and Gardening. . . What the !@#$@!@#?
This weekend many smaller newspapers likely carried this AP story about climate change and gardening as a prominent Sunday feature. One little problem: despite…
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How Dare You Help Out!
The BBC reports that an old woman has “has been told she must stop tending a public flower bed unless she agrees to wear…
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Freddie and Fannie Buying Jumbo Mortgages?
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Radar on Green Fakers: A Must Read
The wonderful Radar Magazine has a funny, witty, snarky and oh-so-true feature on "Green Fakers." These are, of course, eco self-righteous celebs who…
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Harry Potter Books as Objects
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$1 a Year Man
Chrsysler, has hired former Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli to run the now-private, once-again-American-owned automaker. Nardelli, of course, did a good job at Home…
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Nanny State In Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion…
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Bergman the Hack
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At Last, Competition for Amtrak?
A small upstart company run by a Colorado multi-millionaire, GrandLuxe Rail Journeys, appears to have broken a major barrier and started providing scheduled, competitive…
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Should Disaster Insurance Be Compulsory?
A masthead editorial (full text by subscription only) lays out a compelling case for mandatory purchase of catastrophe insurance. I’ve long supported something close…
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Is Traditional Landline Telephone Service Even Worth Saving?
The failure of SunRocket–which I write about here–has left a fair number of people without landline telephone service. Nothing bad seems to have happened…
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Hands off VOIP
Today's New York Times carries a story about the sudden failure and shutdown of my former home telephone company, SunRocket. Although it obviously…
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Plans for the A380
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One Cheer for Singletary
Christine: Like you, I dislike Singletary’s hectoring tone but I think that she inadvertently makes a pretty good point: Market prices can provide a…
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What Lending Crisis?
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Would You Like Some Wood Pulp With That?
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Mandatory Purchase
In a piece in Saturday's Washington Examiner, I examine the parallels between auto insurance and health insurance, and, for the most part, find that…
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Support for Big Government Grows
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Could it happen here? Probably not.
Recent media reports indicate that some the leading suspects in the recently attempted terror attacks against the U.K. were doctors working for the…
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But It’s Not Much Better Down South
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Blame Government, Not Wal-Mart
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Tires from China
Today’s news contains word that The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is calling for the recall of 450,000 Chinese tires that apparently come apart…
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Chem Goes PC
An interesting, depressing article in today’s Inside Higher Ed describes the advances that the Green Left have made in the teaching of undergraduate…
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Do We Worry Too Much About Earmarks?
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Let’s Kill the Bilateral Agreement
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Buying Eyeglasses
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Long Term Outlook on Underwriting Profits
I had an op-ed yesterday’s Washington Times about the rather dismal insurance situation along the Gulf Coast. A friend e-mailed me to challenge one…
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Goodbye Antioch!
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Public Accomodation in Cyberspace?
Since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, almost anyone operating a public accommodation has been banned from discriminating on a wide variety of…
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$1 a year men?
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Overworked Brits?
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On Thoroughbreds
Iain, Interesting points. I’m no expert on horse racing but my understanding is that the the races in the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred…
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Mea Culpa (Sorta) on Credit Scoring
No sooner did I post my thoughts about the Supreme Court decision on credit scoring than I got an e-mail from an American Insurance…
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Improvement of the Breed?
Of course, Greg, it’s worth noting that the organizations you refer to appear to be largely falling down in their efforts to improve their…
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The Quarter Century
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SCOTUS On Insurance and Credit Reporting
A Supreme Court Decision handed down today, Safeco v. Burr, mostly sided with two insurance companies in a dispute over notifications related to the…
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Museum Architecture and American Painting
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Just What We Need? An Air Car?
An Indian company has produced a car that runs on compressed air. I’m quite skeptical of its real environmental benefits — which is I’m…
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Buddy Cianci Pasta Sauce
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Of Cabs and Freedom
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Malum Prohibitum
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Sex! Strippers! Taxes!
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Selling Insurance on the Web
Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription only) features an article about the increasing use of the Web for the sale of insurance policies. I was…
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Wildfires in California: A Growing Residual Market?
We may be seeing the emergence of yet another residual market for insurance, this time against wildfire. Even though fires have declined a great…
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Of Gas Prices and Carbon Taxes
Iain, I found your post on how higher gas prices have reduced travel very interesting. In the short term, what you present is a…
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But Maybe It’s the Best we Can do For Now
Hans, I disagree with some parts of your post on immigration and agree with others. On one hand, I’m in total agreement that we…
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Jerry Falwell, RIP
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Chrysler For Sale. Sold.
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Butt Out!
The Washington Post reports that the The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will now give higher, more restrictive ratings to films that “that…
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Charlie Crist: Populist
Florida continues its populist jihad against private insurance companies. On top of last year’s legislation letting the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. compete outright for…
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Sarko and the French Cultural Myth
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Of Chocolate and Ice Cream
A number of blogs and mainstream media outlets are going wild over proposed FDA regulations that would redefine chocolate. Right now, to be called…
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Green Spendthrifts, Get a Life!
Christine, I loved your post about the new trendy green fashions. Via Fark I’ve just come across something I think tops it: a…
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Speed Limits. . . Don’t Need ‘Em
Some visitors coming to my home this morning complained of very slow traffic on the beltway at 10:00 a.m. Serious traffic this late in the…
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I Do
Surfing around, I just came upon AT&T’s “You Will” advertising campaign from the early 1990s. The ads are well-produced and, almost fifteen years after…
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The Collapse of Private Insurance: Part XXVII
A federal jury verdict yesterday in Lousiana requiring Allstate to pay several million dollars it didn’t expect to further underlines the inherent problem with…
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Guns in Virginia
I wrote about the tragedy at Virginia Tech in National Review Online. My piece, which I wrote really quickly, went up yesterday and, as…
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More on Muir
John, yes. . .but I mentioned Pinchot because I knew you had good things to say about him. Personally, I would likely be on the…
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In defense of Muir
John– Good post. I agree that a lot of environmentalists are wackos. But I think that Muir actually deserves some due as an environmental…
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Kurt Vonnegut, RIP
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Golf Carts and Safety
A front page article in today’s New York Times comments on the rise of electric carts around the country. Particularly in retirement communities, they’ve…
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The Tip of the Iceberg
I have a piece in today’s National Review Online about the new bill that would provide optional federal chartering (OFC) for insurance companies. OFC,…
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Is Bad Regulatory Competition Better than No Regulatory Competition?
I had an interesting conversation about regulatory competition in the context of insurance. A lawyer I was speaking with argued that any regulatory competition structure—even…
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Koch on Management
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So Where do the Shipping Disasters Take Place?
They take place at home. Let me explain. In studies of regulatory policy, the international flags-of-convenience system for shipping often gets cited as an example…
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Bush vs. Gore
Snopes has the lowdown on a very interesting e-mail forward about the homes of George W. Bush and Al Gore. Worth a read.
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Modernism (And Libertarianism) at the Corcoran
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An interesting idea for insurance choice
In the next few weeks, I'm going to be writing a good deal about the idea that insurance companies should have the ability to do…
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Thoughts about McCarran-Ferguson
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, angry with the whole insurance industry over the situation in his home state of Mississippi, has announced that he…
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AP on the Nanny State
The AP has a very good article on the growth of the Nanny State. Best fact I didn’t know: two states have banned smoking…
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Yes, But. . .
Fran, I knew about most of the cases you cite when I wrote the first post. None of those new to me are surprising and…
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I (sorta) Love Consumer Reports
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Me Want Cookie!
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Wait! Is HRC (a little bit) Right for the Wrong Reasons?
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Can “Unsafe” Planes Save Lives?
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Cookie Scalping
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Green AND Market Oriented
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But we can learn some lessons from the U.K.
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A Typical Government Response
Following a tragic bus accident over the weekend, Georgia has announced it will rework several highway exits to make them “safer.” The new measures, the…
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Roberts’ All-Too-Numerous Rules
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Leave the wind to Uncle Sam?
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