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Affordable Energy Is Important to Conquering Poverty
When economists and politicians talk about income inequality, they rarely consider the effects of their policies on the poor, as my co-author Ryan Young has…
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Administration’s War on Work Reflected in Jobs Numbers
The administration and its allies are currently engaged in a regulatory onslaught on employers that can only be described as a war on work. Today’s…
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More on “Inequality”
In serendipitous timing, the Institute of Economic Affairs in London released a new study this week entitled “Never Mind The Gap: Why we…
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CFPB Moves to Cut Off Any Loans to People with Bad Credit
According to the federal government, people may have to live on the streets, but at least they aren’t being “exploited” by companies who are willing…
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Seattle Regulators Go After Rideshare Driver Privacy
Today, I have a column up at FEE.org on the need for classical liberals to make financial privacy as important an aspect of their…
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The Chilling Effect of Dark Matter
Here at CEI, we know all about the chilling effect of executive power. We also know quite a bit about the extent to which…
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Free Market Road Show: The Sharing Economy
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The Sharing Economy Is More than Just Uber
In an article for The New York Times, columnist Farhad Manjoo worries that the Uber model of app-based service companies has run its course. He points out…
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Questions for CFPB Director Richard Cordray
Tomorrow, Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will face questions from the House Financial Services Committee. Here are some of the questions…
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Australian Bank Devalues Rewards Scheme in Anticipation of Interchange Fee Cap
I fear I am beginning to sound like a broken record on the subject of payments card interchange fees, with the needle stuck on “We…
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White House Threatens Veto to Choke Point Reform Bill
As has been demonstrated time and again, this administration is opposed to any change in the law that will reduce its powers. We see this…
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Bill Aims to Stop Operation Choke Point Happening Again
Operation Choke Point is a major abuse of executive authority. As we have detailed over the last couple of years, Choke Point is an…
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Interchange Fee Warnings Coming True in EU
We have often warned about the negative effects of interchange fee regulation and specifically a cap on interchange fees. Last year we warned the European Parliament that…
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Lyft Drivers Remain Independent Contractors
A California class-action lawsuit against ridesharing company Lyft has been settled without trial. In the settlement, Lyft agreed to pay its drivers, their lawyers, and…
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Market Dominance Doesn’t Last; Regulation Shouldn’t Either
One of the justifications for heavy regulation of large companies is that they use market power to crush competition and maintain market dominance. Yet the…
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Three Economists Had the Answer to the President’s Questions
Last night at the State of the Union, the President asked three questions regarding domestic policy (I’ll leave the foreign policy question to others). They…
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The EU Faces Many Challenges in 2016
The EU is in a quiet crisis. For the first time it faces the prospect of a major economy leaving the EU voluntarily. Its internal…
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Promoting Economic Freedom in 2016
It was Marxists who wanted permanent revolution, but it is capitalists who have delivered it. The last 50 years have seen a sustained revolution in…
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A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Free Enterprise
Today, in The Guardian, columnist Zoe Williams repeats an idea often advanced by progressives, that entrepreneurial activity is dependent on the action of others, especially “government,”…
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Bureau of Labor Statistics Releases October Jobs Report
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Halloween Not So Scary for Parents
When it comes to Halloween these days, it seems that parents scare more easily than their children. For the past 15 years, I have checked…
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Back to the Future in Payments Technology
One of the things Back to the Future Part II almost got right about 2015 was how Biff paid for his cab ride—with a thumbprint. A lot…
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Fed Reacts to Job Reports, Why Doesn’t Department of Labor?
We had another jobs report below expectations this morning, coupled with a rare revision downwards of last month’s jobs report. This ends a summer of jobs…
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World Bank Increases Number of Poor
The World Bank is considering changing its definition of what constitutes extreme poverty, raising the level below which someone is treated as extremely poor from $1.25…
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Transparency in Card Fees: Where Does the Argument Stop?
There are three ways banks that issue credit and debit cards can gain revenue from them: interest rates (in the case of credit cards) charged…
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Australian Reserve Bank Gets the Economics Wrong on Interchange Fees
A new report commissioned by the International Alliance for Electronic Payments, of which CEI is a member, finds that the Reserve Bank of Australia…
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NLRB’s Joint-Employer Ruling: Payback for Unions at Workers’ and Business’ Expense
In a radical new ruling, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) late last week threw all American franchise and contract businesses into a state of…
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The NLRB Declines Jurisdiction in College Athlete Unionization Case
The National Labor Relations Board has declined the opportunity to rule on whether or not college athletes are employees and can therefore be…
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The Administration Is about to Upend American Business Practices
It is probably the biggest change in American employment law since the National Labor Relations Act and its reform in the 1930s and ‘40s, but…
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CEI and Allies Submit Evidence to Australian Senate Inquiry on Credit Cards
Today, CEI and other members of the International Alliance for Electronic Payments joined the Australian Taxpayers Alliance in submitting evidence to an Australian Senate inquiry into credit…
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Financial Regulation and Payments Update: July 31, 2015
Last week saw the fifth anniversary of Dodd-Frank and there was a great deal of commentary from opponents of the act, not least from us…
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Dodd-Frank’s Dire Legacy: The Durbin Amendment
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UK Banks End Reward Programs in Anticipation of Interchange Fee Caps
File this one under “we told you so.” The Independent reports a scale-back in credit card reward programs in the United Kingdom: The…
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Operation Choke Point: The CFPB Is Now in Charge
I suggested at TheBlaze some weeks ago that even as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was stepping back from its involvement in Operation Choke Point, the…
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International Panel Outlines Problems with EU Interchange Fee Regulation
On March 17, an international panel of experts gathered in Brussels to discuss the proposed EU interchange fee regulations that are set to be approved…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Bitcoin
On the eve of the financial crisis of 2007-8, financial systems had grown extremely sophisticated, but were still essentially based on a model of trust.
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FDIC Retreats from Operation Choke Point
In a partial victory for all those campaigning against the abuse of power known as Operation Choke Point (see our comprehensive study here), the Federal…
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Rep. Leutkemeyer Moves to Choke off Operation Choke Point
The release this week of a new House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff report into Operation Choke Point provides another opportunity to underline just how…
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Corporate Action against Disease Points Way to Resiliency Strategy for Developing World
In a piece at The Freeman today, I examine how corporations in the developing world have reacted to the threat to their workers from diseases such…
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The Long National Nightmare of Dodd-Frank Is Almost Over
One of the prime reasons for the continuing economic uncertainty that bedevils so many ordinary Americans is the presence in law of the Dodd-Frank Act…
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The Impending BitLicense and Premature Regulations
Last month, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced its proposed regulations for businesses engaged in “Virtual Currency Business Activity.”The Department defines these businesses…
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Separation of Powers Survived Today by a One-Vote Margin
My colleagues over at GlobalWarming.org are already mulling over what today’s ruling in UARG v. EPA means for the future of American industry and energy production, but there’s…
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India Takes Action against Eco-Colonialism
In The Really Inconvenient Truths, I wrote about the environmentalist mantra I = PAT, where I is environmental impact, P is population, A is affluence,…
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Finance for the People
Over at The Freeman, I take a look at how technology has been democratizing access to capital, bringing news ways of raising money to people…
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Questions for Richard Cordray
This morning, Richard Cordray, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, testifies to a House Committee on the Board's semi-annual report. One of the Board's…
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Export-Import Bank Subsidizes the Western World
On its “About Us” page, the Export-Import Bank gives us its purported mission: “Ex-Im Bank does not compete with private sector lenders but provides…
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Bureaucrats Line Up to Regulate Bitcoin
The regulators are tasting blood around bitcoin, and like sharks they are positioning for the kill. The blood that they taste was not actually shed…
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Retailers Only Sell Half a Loaf in their Analysis of the Costs of Interchange Fees
In a comment on my American Spectator article on the deleterious effects of debit card interchange fees on American households, Sara Durr, Spokesperson for…
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The Administration’s Regulatory Uncertainty
Groups like the Center for American Progress are claiming that the possibility of another row over the budget and debt ceiling are creating “uncertainty”…
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We Didn’t Regulate Credit Cards, We Regulated People
That was the upshot of a panel I spoke at yesterday in New York at the Atlas Liberty Forum. It looked at the impact of…