Blog
Robert Reich Gets It
Some of the consequences of increasing government’s role in health care are easy predict.
Blog
Free-market commentary on the Kerry-Graham cap-and-trade oped
Updated 10/16/09 Over the weekend, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) co-authored an oped in the New York Times titled, “Yes We…
Blog
New Version of Obama Health-Care Plan Relies on Imaginary Savings, Costs More Than $2 Trillion, and Will Explode Federal and State Budget Deficits
Health-care “reform” always costs more than predicted, as ObamaCare provisions have at the state level. So the claim that the new, cheaper version…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 61: Big Screen TVs – Mankind’s Doom!
On November 4, California regulators may vote to ban big-screen televisions. The large sets use more energy than they would prefer.
Blog
Web help wanted for Fumento.com
Blog
Eliot Spitzer Wants your Pension
Today, Slate features a rant by disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that includes distortions and falsehoods so blatant that they wouldn’t merit…
Blog
How Much Harm Do Teacher Unions Do?
Plenty, according to the new film, The Cartel. The film purports to show “educational system like we’ve never seen it before. Behind every dropout…
Blog
Taking the heat and defending free enterprise
It’s about time that business groups started defending free enterprise, and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce is off to a good start – a…
Blog
Madison on National Health Care Reform
Here is the letter I wrote that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in response to Erwin Chemerinsky’s article on the constitutionality of…
Blog
Congressional Conference Committee Attempts to Turn Hate Crimes Law Into a Speech Code
Hate crimes are irrational, and what sets them off is often unpredictable. The hate-criminal whose sentence was upheld in Wisconsin v. Mitchell by a…
Blog
More on Public Sector Unions
Slate blogger Mickey Kaus explains how public sector unions are driving state and local governments to the brink of bankruptcy (via Nick Gillespie at…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 60: Hybrid Car Noise
One advantage of hybrid cars is that they are quiet. Too quiet, some would say. Blind pedestrians may not hear a hybrid coming around the…
Blog
Silencing Criticism through Libel Law
The physicist turned science journalist Simon Singh has been sued in a UK court and, this past summer, found liable for libel for an April…
Blog
Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse
Popular outrage over eminent domain abuse may have waned a bit since the Supreme Court’s poorly-reasoned Kelo ruling in 2005, but economic development takings remain…
Blog
LibertyWeek 64: Regulators Gone Wild!
Blog
Senate Finance Passes Health Reform Bill
Earlier today, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) announced that she would vote in favor of the health care reform bill authored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman…
Blog
Senators Lindsey Graham and John Kerry: Yes We Can (Raise Your Energy Prices and Send Jobs Abroad)
Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) published a curious op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times titled, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Legislation).” …
Blog
The Wages of Government Unions
The Economist‘s current Lexington column highlights the growing public resentment at the widening disparity between compensation and job security in the private and public…
Blog
Three Cheers for the Nobel Economic Prizes!
After the weird “future” award to President Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize, another Nobel committee has made a brilliant choice – awarding the Economics…
Blog
2002 Economics Nobel Prize Winner Vernon Smith on 2009 Winner Elinor Ostrom
In honor of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, it’s worth recalling a mention of Ostrom’s…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 59: Pharmacy Interns in Colorado
It is illegal to intern for a pharmacist in Colorado without a license.
Blog
Markets vs. Special Interests
"It is precisely the fact that the market does not respect vested interests that makes the people concerned ask for government interference."…
Blog
This Year’s Economics Nobel Winners
Blog
Windmills for spite
Clean Energy Splits France: It's Carbon vs. Countryside in Environmental Battle Over Plan for Windmills Near Coastal Shrine." So reads the Washington Post headline. But…
Blog
No “Weekly Flu Watch” this week
See instead my article “Swine Flu: the Real Threat Is Panic,” from the New York Post .
Blog
How did the President’s Council swine flu scenario measure up?
Sorta depends on who you ask. The read about the flu in the mainstream media, you would think men are going through the streets with…
Blog
Mass v. EPA’s legacy of “absurd results”
Last week I posted several excerpts from EPA’s “Tailoring Rule,” which confirm that the Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. EPA (April 2007), set the stage for…
Blog
Nobel Prize “Gift” Double Standard
Drug companies are apparently forbidden from offering freebies to doctors in certain liberal states like Massachusetts and Vermont, under the theory that doctors’ loyalty…
Blog
Best article on Obama’s Nobel — Wash Post’s Cohen
Here’s Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen’s take this morning on the Nobel Prize announcement. It’s too good to excerpt: In a stunning announcement,…
Blog
Secretary Chu Crosses the Line; Should Resign
Yesterday, energy secretary Steven Chu told reporters at a solar energy conference in Washington, D.C. "it's wonderful" that Apple Inc., Exelon, Nike, PG&E, and…