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Adam Smith on how to love and be lovely
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
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Is Biden admin disappearing a red flag for costly regulations?
Is the Biden administration trying to do away with the category of “economically significant” regulations altogether? Before this administration, an “economically significant” regulation was one…
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Court punts to FTC, freezing Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action Monday to stop Microsoft from purchasing the game developer Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed for both a…
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Adam Smith’s ‘tolerable administration’ vs. America’s increasingly intolerable one
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
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New Biden White House Agenda shows 3,666 rules in regulatory pipeline
The Spring 2023 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions has been released. A fall version of this twice-yearly document will also contain a…
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Senate Commerce hearing shows why some junk fees aren’t garbage
In his State of the Union address this February, President Biden reiterated his intent to crack down on so-called junk fees. Biden discussed…
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Time to shine more light on regulators’ ‘shadow boxes’
Accompanying presidential executive orders and memoranda are the numerous sub-regulatory proclamations of departments and agencies we like to call “regulatory dark matter.” Occasionally we…
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The real Adam Smith
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
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Why Trump and Biden are wrong to sweat a trade deficit
Do trade deficits make American workers worse off? Trade deficits occur when a country imports more goods than it exports, which the U.S. has done…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: fireworks shows and cybersecurity subsidies
Russia destroyed a major dam in Ukraine, putting thousands of homes and a nuclear power plant at risk. Former President Donald Trump was indicted again.
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FTC, or ‘Fundraising Trade Commission,’ tries to shrug off a Supreme Court judgment
If you thought the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was only coming after “big” business, think again. The FTC is targeting small and family businesses too. …
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Congress should block Biden’s harmful environmental regulations with power of the purse
Congress shouldn’t sit back and watch as the Biden administration proposes and finalizes costly and harmful energy and environmental regulation. Instead, it needs to take…
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SEC just dismissed dozens of cases before its ‘not-quite courts,’ thanks to real court rulings
For over a decade, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been forcing people into in-house quasi-judicial proceedings that lack the basic constitutional protections of…
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Free the Economy podcast: Immense economic costs with Scott Lincicome
In this week’s episode we talk about central bank digital currencies, bankers backing off of ESG claims, avoiding the mistakes of…
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Biden Labor pick Julie Su claims she cannot recall her Prop 22 vote
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su claimed multiple times Wednesday that she could not recall how she voted on California’s Proposition 22, the ballot initiate…
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Activist securities regulators should worry as Supreme Court revisits Chevron doctrine
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a major announcement that may impose significant changes to agency statutory interpretation. The Court has agreed to hear…
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Rising small business regs may spur Senate to pass REINS Act
In a bid to restore congressional accountability over the regulatory enterprise, the 118th Congress this week is set to vote on the so-called REINS Act,…
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War over gas stoves heats up with two House votes today
President Biden’s administration has declared war on gas stoves, but today the House of Representatives is fighting back Two Biden administration agencies, the Consumer Product…
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Biden administration keeps making it harder to track government ‘guidance’ documents
Federal government “guidance documents” consist of agency memoranda, bulletins, circulars, administrative interpretations, letters, manuals, and so much more. These are not supposed to be regulatory…
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Lina Khan’s whole new level of economic bloodletting
The Biden administration in its Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy and, more pointedly, the Federal Trade Commission in many of…
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5 myths about Joe Biden’s crackdown on gas stoves
The Biden administration’s craziest idea yet? The assault on gas stoves. Second craziest? The lame attempts to deny it. Now that two bills…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: electric motors and small business loans
Congress and President Biden reached a debt ceiling deal. Texas attorney general and antitrust hawk Ken Paxton was impeached. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging…
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SPPI-TV hit: How price controls endanger small dollar loans, boost loan sharks
In my first media appearance from the sleek new CEI studios at our offices in Washington, DC, I joined a great panel on the May…
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‘Passive-aggressive’ regulators are a growing headache for American business
“The Future of Independent Agencies: Fallout from Problems at the Federal Trade Commission,” was an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to alert…
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Congress should stop the White House from rewriting ‘Circular A-4’
Barring an extension, next week (June 6) is the deadline for comments on the White House Office of Management and Budget’s …
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Free the Economy podcast: Capitalists of the world unite! with Richard Salsman
In this week’s episode, we talk about conservatives defending the D.C. swamp, Andrew Stuttaford’s warning about green land grabs, a new Heartland Institute report…
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Do more deregulation in debt limit deal
The internal GOP debate this week is over lower-case “d” default if a June 6 deadline for an increase in the debt limit is…
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Moore good news? CEI responds to government in landmark tax case
Earlier today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a reply brief in the Moores’ case. A few weeks ago, the government argued that the Supreme…
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Debt deal’s PAYGO law won’t pay out. Here’s how to fix it.
In an effort to curb excessive government spending, a provision known as statutory administrative PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) has been introduced in the debt ceiling deal struck…
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Why is the debt ceiling deal helping to ban gas stoves?
When Biden-appointed Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr. announced last January that his agency was investigating gas stoves and that a…