The Open Market Blog

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/25/2007

In Saturday’s Washington Post, I have a letter discussing class-action lawsuit abuses.  It discusses how class-action lawsuit “settlements intended to benefit consumers get paid instead…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/21/2007

Earlier, I wrote about Exxon’s challenge to a $2.5 billion punitive damage award against it (in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case) that appeared…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/20/2007

Earlier, I wrote about the municipal bond insurance scam, in which financially shaky “insurers” receive a fee for “insuring” the bonds of credit-worthy municipalities…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/18/2007

The American Tort Reform Association has just issued its Judicial Hellholes 2007 report, an annual summary of the nation's most unfair civil court…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/17/2007

In the D.C. Examiner, Mark Tapscott has an interesting column about class action lawsuits. A common outcome of such suits is that the lawyers…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/14/2007

Inadequate exposure to the sun kills at least 50,000 to 60,000 people per year in the United States alone, university researchers say. We’ve all…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/12/2007

Earlier, I wrote about the racist "diversity" consultant Glenn Singleton, who is hired by school officials, like the Arlington, Virginia schools, despite…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/11/2007

Former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders has settled her sexual harassment case against Madison Square Garden for $11.5 million. A jury found…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/10/2007

The mortgage bailout proposed by the Treasury Secretary will just makes things worse in the future, explains Bill Fleckenstein at MSN’s Money Central. Similarly,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/10/2007

Sunday’s Washington Post contained a story about how current congressional leaders, who have belatedly criticized the Bush administration for using degrading interrogation techniques tantamount to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/05/2007

The Washington Times has an editorial today, “No Bailout,” explaining why the Treasury Secretary’s plan to freeze mortgage interest rates for people who borrowed…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/04/2007

I agree with most, but not all, of what Eli has to say below in his thoughtful post about the costs of divorce, such…

• By: Hans Bader
• 12/03/2007

Earlier, we described the antics of Glenn Singleton, the San Francisco "diversity" trainer who is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/30/2007

Yesterday, I wrote about the “Massive Bond Rating Scam,” and how irresponsible bond-rating agencies, shielded by regulation against competition, have contributed to the mortgage…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/30/2007

Overlawyered has more coverage of the indictment of Dickie Scruggs, the rich trial lawyer who helped bring about the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement that…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/30/2007

The Brady Campaign has spent years trying to convince the courts to strike down a federal law, passed with bipartisan support, that bans suits…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/29/2007

Dickie Scruggs, one of the lawyers who helped bring about the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, has just been indicted on bribery charges. Under…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/29/2007

Even the most poorly-run state has less chance of defaulting on its debts than a typical well-run company. That's because states, unfortunately, have the power…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/27/2007

The Seattle School District says that celebrating Thanksgiving is racially insensitive.  This is the same school district that claimed for several years that “individualism” is a form of “cultural…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/21/2007

Earlier, I wrote about the Seattle Schools’ bizarre and racist definitions of racism, which branded all whites (and only whites) as racists, claimed that…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/21/2007

Oklahoma attorney general Drew Edmondson’s latest outrage is chronicled today in an editorial in the D.C. Examiner. The paper points out that he is…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/21/2007

A Saudi Arabian court originally sentenced a victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 90 lashes, after she reported her…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/20/2007

The school system in my county, Arlington, Virginia, certainly knows how to waste taxpayers' money. Like several school districts, they've hired an infamous race-baiting…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/20/2007

The Supreme Court has just decided to hear an appeal of the federal appeals court ruling striking down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/20/2007

Yesterday, a panel of federal appellate judges worried that declaring paper money a violation of the rights of the blind would open the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/19/2007

Two federal appeals courts have rejected the idea that a private employer's requirement that employees speak English on the job is racial or national origin…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/19/2007

While tourism is rising rapidly in much of the world, it is falling in America, thanks to the hassle that our government puts foreign…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/16/2007

Glenn Singleton of Pacific Educational Group has become a rich man by preaching racism, hate, and scapegoating. School systems hire him for hundreds of thousands…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/14/2007

As I earlier anticipated, the Washington, D.C., administrative law judge who sued for $54 million after losing his pants has now lost his…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/12/2007

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would outlaw private-sector (and some public-sector) discrimination based on sexual orientation, passed the House last week by a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/12/2007

In June, the Supreme Court cut back on school districts’ ability to assign students to schools by race, even when school districts claim…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/09/2007

In American Council of the Blind v. Paulson, a trial judge declared that American paper money discriminates against the blind because it lacks features…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/08/2007

CNBC’s Jim Cramer, no free-market conservative, is nonetheless appalled by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s clumsy meddling in the mortgage markets, which he believes…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/08/2007

Phone companies deserve immunity from lawsuits for cooperating the with federal antiterrorism surveillance program, according to a recent report by the Information Technology and…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/08/2007

If an artist sticks a crucifix in urine, or a museum displays pictures of children smeared with feces or severed genitalia, liberal academics and judges…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/07/2007

Nigeria’s federal government is demanding more than 5.3 trillion Naira — or more than $44 billion — from tobacco companies such as Philip Morris.

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/07/2007

Anyone who thinks history is a dry and dull subject should read James Swanson’s Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. His fascinating book…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/07/2007

In Oregon, voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have created a permanent state health-care program financed by a major cigarette tax increase (which…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/06/2007

In June, the Supreme Court ruled against a student’s First Amendment challenge to his discipline for displaying, off school grounds, a cryptic banner that read…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/05/2007

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial this weekend describing the ways that the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) would undermine America’s security…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/05/2007

CEI rated Rhode Island attorney general Patrick Lynch the fifth-worst attorney general in America in its The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/05/2007

In today’s New York Times, former attorney general John Ashcroft explains why it would be harmful and risky to allow lawsuits to continue against…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/02/2007

In response to complaints by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Delaware has suspended its coercive indoctrination of…

• By: Hans Bader
• 11/01/2007

It turns out that the billions of dollars that have been spent on international AIDS programs have largely been wasted. In some places, like…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/31/2007

Jacob Sullum’s syndicated column describes Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, in which the Supreme Court will decide whether federal maritime law permits punitive damages…

• 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: 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…