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Why George Washington Shouldn’t Be Canceled
The father of our country is making news, but for disappointing reasons. Washington was trending on Twitter after his statue was toppled in Portland. A private…
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Fedcoin and FedNow are Dangerous and Unnecessary Expansions of Federal Reserve Power
To counter the financial damage from America’s national lockdown, the Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented stepsy. Most of these moves received grudging acceptance even from…
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My Answer to J.K. Rowling on What Cryptocurrency Is
To paraphrase a famous financial services commercial from the 1970s and 1980s, when J.K. Rowling asks, people answer. When the famed author of the Harry…
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SEC’s Shuttering of Fund Fees – #NeverNeeded and Never Authorized
Over the past month, CEI and others have pointed to #NeverNeeded regulations that are hindering our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to economic dislocation.
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Modified Libra Cryptocurrency Still an Innovation, but Clear away Regulatory Barriers for More
Libra and other cryptocurrencies could serve functions other than initially imagined. The potential for faster payments from Libra and other cryptocurrencies, at a time when…
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How SEC Accounting Regulations Hindered National Stockpile—and Still May Be Doing So
In a new report, CEI experts outline #NeverNeeded regulations that are frustrating responses to the pandemic and its aftermath. Among those is an obscure Securities…
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Don’t Save Restaurants by Shafting Consumers
Restaurants are among the hardest—if not the hardest—hit of industries impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like other industries, restaurants are lobbying Congress and state legislatures…
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Best Books of 2019: Year of Vindication for Mother of George Washington
August 25 of this past year was the 230th anniversary of the death of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of the first president of the…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should End Frivolous Student Loan Lawsuit
The efforts of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger have gone a long way in reversing egregious Obama-era actions that plagued the agency,…
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In Praise of Pro-Consumer Tenure of Finance Regulator Kraninger
As she prepares to give her semi-annual testimony to Congress this week—on Wednesday to the House Financial Services Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and on Thursday…
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Feds: Gambling Fine, But Investing Too Risky
“In the risk reform debate, as in so many political debates, logic is often for losers.” So lamented Competitive Enterprise Institute founder and president emeritus…
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Debt Collectors Keep Credit Market Flowing
Debt collecting is a profession that gets little love, but given the social good done by debt collectors who operate ethically and follow the rules,…
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Defiance of Congress Melts Federal Reserve Credibility
In advance of his testimony yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was the subject of a front-page story in The…
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Facebook Libra Highlights Flaws of Fed Foray into Real-Time Payments
More than ten years after the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the source code for Bitcoin, and after hundreds of other cryptocurrencies have been introduced, Facebook…
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SEC’s ‘Regulation Best Interest’ Respects Investor Choice
Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved final rules that comprise “Regulation Best Interest,” which will govern conduct of broker-dealers in their transactions with retail investors. Any…
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Don’t Let Credit Scoring Kerfuffle Compromise GSE Reform
Just when it seemed that reforming the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was becoming a “third rail” that politicians did not want…
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Shed Light on Cryptocurrency ‘Dark Matter’ Regulation at SEC
A few days ago, the Trump administration issued a memorandum strongly discouraging what the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Wayne Crews has called “regulatory dark matter.” The…
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Lyft and the ‘Cheers’ IPOs: How Overregulation Leaves Middle-Class Investors Behind
After much anticipation, Lyft finally went public today, opening on NASDAQ at $87.24 per share—well above its initial public offering price of $72. Lyft’s market…
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SEC Should Stop Coercing Brokers to Buy Data From Exchanges
There are many types of burdensome government mandates, but of all the Ten Thousand Commandments, regulations that coerce the purchase of a particular product or…
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Rep. Waters Reiterates Support for JOBS Act 3.0
In a major speech to a liberal group outlining her priorities as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) sharply criticized…
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Agenda for the 116th Congress: The Second Decade of Crypto-Blockchain
As cryptocurrency and the associated blockchain celebrate their tenth birthdays, CEI’s new “Free to Prosper” agenda for the 116th Congress aims to ensure bureaucratic red…
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Year in Review 2018: Operation Choke Point
Every Halloween, there exists the temptation for commentators to describe routine events in the news with adjectives like “scary” and “frightening.” Sensitive to sounding clichéd…
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Best Books of 2018: Judicial Fortitude
My pick for one of the best books of this year is “Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State” (Encounter Books,…
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Lame Duck Session Should Undo Crippling Rules on Middle-Class Investors and Entrepreneurs
Next year, with Congress divided once again, bipartisan legislation will be the order of the day. Indeed for passage of both chambers, it will be…
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Supreme Court Should Decide if Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Is Unconstitutional
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is asking the Supreme Court to hear the lawsuit we filed challenging the constitutionality of the Bureau of Consumer Financial…
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Confirm Kraninger, Rein in Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
Today, the Senate Banking Committee will likely vote to send the nomination of Kathleen Kraninger for director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to…
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Elizabeth Warren’s Hypocrisy on Financial Regulation: Part 1
As far as politicians’ transgressions go, I usually don’t get that riled up about hypocrisy. In the course of voting on and debating so many…
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Securities and Exchange Commission Bests Labor Department ‘Fiduciary Rule,’ But Still Adds Red Tape
In March, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals killed the Obama administration’s “fiduciary rule,” a prime example of the “bureaucrats know best” type of…
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Federal Charters May Remove Interest Rate Uncertainty for Fintech Firms
The July 31 policy statement by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announcing that it will now grant “special purpose national…
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In U.S. and Australia, Payment Card Price Controls Create Many Unhappy Returns
Eight years ago this month, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the so-called Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and…