The Open Market Blog

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 03/07/2008

At long last, David Simon’s grossly overrated, overwrought, overwritten, television series “The Wire” is getting the bad reviews it deserves. [Full disclosure: I’ve…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 03/07/2008

The final verdict in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) trial for the arson of the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture is finally in,…

• By: Fran Smith
• 03/07/2008

An excellent commentary on Bloomberg.com today on the wave of protectionism spurred on not just by U.S. presidential candidates but by other rich countries.

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/07/2008

Congress is now so bent on overregulation that is that it’s getting a plea for restraint from George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee.

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/07/2008

California doesn’t think much of home-schoolers. A state court ruling recently held that a couple had no constitutional right to home-school their children, and…

• By: Iain Murray
• 03/06/2008

The United Kingdom has a culture of heavy drinking, one that goes back hundreds of years at the very least. This has been an object…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/06/2008

Apocalyptic global warming scenarios peddled by people like Al Gore seem increasingly far-fetched, as Bearing Drift notes. “A recent article from Canada’s National Post…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 03/06/2008

I want to thank my fellow Tech Liberation Front contributor Tim Lee for pointing out that Open Market RSS feeds should feature full articles,…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 03/06/2008

Environmental activists want to regulate bottled water out of existence because they say that it is a waste of resources because the alternatives–such as filtered…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/06/2008

When parents object to political indoctrination and sexually intrusive questions aimed at their children by public school officials, the courts insist that they have no…

• By: Fran Smith
• 03/06/2008

Trade critics, sensing blood from the populist success in the presidential primaries, are moving beyond NAFTA to call for a crackdown on investment provisions in…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 03/06/2008

I adore Matthew Nisbeth’s research but he is off his rocker in this comment he posted on his blog and that he presented in…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 03/06/2008

Last night I got home from an exhausting and exhilarating trip to New York City. During my stay, I barely got out of the hotel…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 03/05/2008

Few federal agencies irritate these days like the Transportation Security Administration, which brought all airline security screening under federal control. Now thanks to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/05/2008

Virginia’s governor, Tim Kaine, plans to call the state legislature into special session to try to come up with new taxes to replace the…

• By: Iain Murray
• 03/05/2008

This week, half of CEI's staff, it seems, decamped to New York City for the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, organized by the…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 03/05/2008

Today, National Review’s editors endorse passage of the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, which, in addition to creating greater economic opportunities through increased commerce, would…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 03/05/2008

I can’t stand awards shows, and I don’t watch the Oscars, but I do find the business aspects of Hollywood interesting — which is why…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/05/2008

What happened in Washington state is frightening. It is further confirmation of a trend in eco-terrorism I report on in Eco-Freaks. Eco-terrorism…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 03/05/2008

It is ironic that environmentalist hype about global warming and green calls for alternative fuels are undermining some of the greens’ very own programs and…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/05/2008

Despite that fact that most economist agree (to steal the global warming crowd’s favorite turn of phrase) that rent control has primarily negative effects, laws…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 03/05/2008

An important new study from the American Consumer Institute shows that consumers, on the whole, want broader choice of insurance plans. Right…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 03/05/2008

Cord, I couldn’t agree more with your points about Gary Gygax. I think it’s also worth noting that the game he created Dungeons…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/05/2008

In The Washington Post, Robert Samuelson explains that the government is doing more harm than good by attempting to delay the inevitable popping of…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 03/04/2008

Gary Gygax, the father of role-playing games, died today at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. As a fellow Wisconite and lover of video games–the…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 03/04/2008

James Lovelock is the originator of the Gaia myth and convinced that the world is coming to an end, soon, because of global warming is…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 03/04/2008

Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass) has introduced legislation aimed at ridding the cell phone world of the much criticized practicies of phone subsidies, long-term contracts, and…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 03/04/2008

I’m a case study in complex taxes. During 2007, I switched jobs, got income from a half dozen sources, bought one house, sold another, made…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/03/2008

Hans, it’s also wrong to refer to this Supreme Court as anti-investor. Two weeks ago, as I have noted, the Court unanimously ruled in…

• By: Fran Smith
• 03/03/2008

A New York Times editorial today points to the high prices of food — partly spurred by the heavy government involvement in promoting corn…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/03/2008

Mississippi’s attorney general, Jim Hood, is praising a shady prosecutor who put innocent people in jail, calling him a “straight arrow.” Mississippi’s legislature…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/03/2008

The DC Examiner editorializes against a Senate bill that would “reform” the consumer product laws by giving state attorneys general broad powers to sue…

• By: Hans Bader
• 03/03/2008

Investor’s Business Daily comments on the decision by the House of Representatives to exempt an oil company controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American leftist dictator from…

• 02/29/2008

The new testimony and announcements by DOI/USFWS regarding coming Endangered Species Act (ESA) listings and changes are most interesting. First, DOI announced a…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 02/29/2008

In recent months, environmentalists have been saying that bottled water is wasteful and no healthier than tap. They are helping advance bottled water taxes, bans…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/29/2008

Candidates running for POTUS shouldn’t whine about being attacked by their opponents. Things look pretty mild in the good ole USA, especially compared with…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/29/2008

The Virginia Supreme Court today struck down a state law giving unelected bodies the power to levy taxes in Marshall v. Northern Virginia…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/29/2008

I have more posts on child-snatching by government agencies, strange sexual harassment rulings, and punitive damages for oil spills, at Point of…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/29/2008

In the Wall Street Journal today (subscription needed), Kimberley A. Strassel’s column hits the Democrats’ current protectionist stance on trade and points to the party’s…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 02/28/2008

Public policy is rife with unintended consequences. The newest is that soaring food prices caused by ethanol subsidies in the U.S. are causing food prices…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/28/2008

More proof that wind power is no panacea for the nation’s looming electricity crisis. The wind dropped in Texas, and caused blackouts: ERCOT…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/28/2008

It’s E-Day in the UK, a national ‘awareness’ day backed by major environmental groups and religious organizations, and the BBC, aimed at getting Brits…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/28/2008

These days it seems that you can slap the word “addiction” after any activity and escape personal responsibility for poor decision making. Moreover, in…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/28/2008

Does this make sense? At the same time the House thinks it’s a good idea to provide Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia with duty-free…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

Government social workers have an incentive to overreact to erroneous allegations of child abuse, and take children away from loving parents, because they reasonably…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 02/27/2008

I find it ironic for Virginia State Delegate Dave Albo to decry businesses being “scammed,” when he has built a reputation for …

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

The Virginia General Assembly last year voted to let counties increase their commercial property tax in order to pay for new transportation projects. The counties…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

The Supreme Court decided two discrimination cases this week that confirm that the Supreme Court is not “pro-business “in discrimination cases, as liberal journalists claim.

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/27/2008

With talk of recession, inflation, and stagnation dominating financial news, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in his written testimony to the House Financial Services…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/27/2008

Biofuels have recently come under attack from their erstwhile supporters in the liberal environmentalist movement for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it’s the turn of…