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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week’s drama over the combined COVID-19 spending bill and omnibus budget bill ran over into Christmas, spoiling a three-day work week in Washington. In…
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Best Books of 2020: Virgil Henry Storr and Ginny Seung Choi – Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
Most people see markets as dens of greed and moral corruption. In their new book, Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals?, Virgil…
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Amazon’s Private Labels Don’t Threaten Competition
A recent Wall Street Journal article raises concerns about Amazon’s generics offerings and the online retailer’s business practices surrounding diaper sales. In evaluating…
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FCC Should Free Spectrum for 5G
5G is the future of mobile broadband. Freeing up spectrum to facilitate the use of the airwaves is more important than ever. To that end,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
COVID vaccine rollout has started. While immunizing millions of people will take several months, it looks like the worst is almost past. For scientists to…
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Biden Names Climate Alarmists to All Top Environment and Energy Positions
President-elect Joe Biden this week announced his choices for the top environment and energy positions in his administration. All are climate alarmists, which confirms earlier…
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Washington Post Trashes EPA Benefit Cost Analysis Rule
The Washington Post last week published an inaccurate and misleading analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently finalized benefit-cost analysis (BCA) rule…
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Investor-State Dispute Settlement Claims Hold Steady During Pandemic: Reform Is Still in Progress and Is Still Desired
Companies take large risks when investing abroad, and countries have an important self-interest in attracting foreign investment. The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism allows foreign…
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To-Do List for 2021: Just Get Rid of AB5
It isn’t just Washington that gets a fresh start beginning in January. California gets one, too. One of the top items on the Golden State’s…
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The Bipartisan War on Affordable Air Conditioning
Congressional Democrats and Republicans are currently collaborating on a bill that will make air conditioning more expensive. Hooray for bipartisanship! Both the House and Senate…
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Documentary Exposes Global Nicotine Misinformation Campaign
What if, instead of a deadly “addictive” chemical, nicotine was a revolutionary therapy able to treat several debilitating conditions and, potentially, save billions of lives?…
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What to Expect from Biden’s Trade Policy: Fast Track, China, and Labor
Joe Biden supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2015, and organized labor has not forgotten. But there appears to be growing optimism among…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news is that the Food and Drug Administration is poised to follow several other countries’ lead in approving one or more coronavirus vaccines.
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UAW Corruption Case Reveals Lack of Accountability at Union
Today the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement in a long-running corruption probe of the United Auto Workers (UAW) that will put the…
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Democrats Hoping to Unionize Entire Sectors of Economy at Once
Democratic lawmakers will push to have entire sectors of the economy unionized, a practice called “sectoral bargaining,” when Congress reconvenes next year. The idea behind…
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New CEI Video Series Looks at the Effects of Green New Deal Policies
In 2019, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezand Massachusetts Senator and fellow progressive Ed Markey introduced the Green New Deal, a Back-to-the-Dark-Ages manifesto that seeks to…
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New York Times Trashes EPA’s Particulate Matter Rule
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday, December 7, finalized its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) rule for particulate matter (PM). Controversy swirls…
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Some Frequently Asked Questions about Socialism
During my virtual “tour” for the release of my book, The Socialist Temptation, certain questions came up regularly. I have already set out my…
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The Relevant Market Fallacy and Facebook’s Antitrust Cases
Facebook was hit by two separate antitrust complaints this week. One is from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the other is from a…
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Facebook Antitrust Suits Disregard Consumer Welfare
Today the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 state attorneys general announced antitrust suits against Facebook, asserting the social media company’s acquisitions of…
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COVID-19 Vaccine Shows that the World Needs More Refrigeration and Less Anti-Refrigeration Climate Policy
Refrigeration has had a substantial positive impact on public health in the U.S. and other developed nations where it is in widespread use. Increased market…
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A Big-Picture View of the Antitrust Debate
In this month’s issue of Reason magazine, I have a feature-length article on the bipartisan push to revive antitrust enforcement. If you don’t have…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The midnight regulatory rush is on, with one of the year’s highest weekly page counts last week. The 2020 Federal Register is on pace for…
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Hyping the Whirlwind
A new Nature paper on hurricane decay rates that was published on November 11 by Lin Li and Pinaki Chakroborty (hereafter, LC20) is receiving a…
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Labor Department Job Report Shows Improvement but Challenges Ahead
The Labor Department’s Friday report that 245,000 jobs were added in November confirms that, while an economic recovery is still underway, its momentum is…
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Walter Williams, 1936-2020
Walter Williams passed away this week at age 84. He was the rare economist to succeed as both an academic and a popular communicator.
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America Really Is Revolutionary
Several scholars I respect, including Daniel Hannan in his 2013 book Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World, have argued that…
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Biden Team Expected to Take Hatchet to Pension Protection Rule
The Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Eugene Scalia, implemented an important (though widely misunderstood) rule this year, regarding how federally regulated pension…
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Biden’s OMB Pick, Neera Tanden, Once Warned Democrats against a $15 Minimum Wage
Joe Biden’s choice of Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress, to be the next director of the Office of Management and…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Thanksgiving was rather different than most years, and not in a good way. Hopefully, with viable vaccines on the way, it will be back to…
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A Cold Winter for Santa in Sunland, California
Department store Santa Claus Patrick Turnbull has hoisted children onto his lap and listened to their Christmas wishes for two decades in Sunland, California, but…
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Retro Review: The Communist Manifesto (1848)
The manifesto of the Communist party, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847 and first published the next year, has a legendary pair…
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John Kerry, a Tall Climate Envoy
President-elect Joe Biden announced on Monday that he would appoint John Kerry as his administration’s “special presidential climate envoy.” The title is misleading: Kerry will…
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Is General Motors’ Shift to More Electric Vehicles Good for the Environment?
General Motors recently announced a major push toward electric vehicles (EVs), pledging $27 billion in investment by 2025 and promising to have 30 EV…
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Consumers Pay the Price for Mass Torts Driven By Junk Science
The Center for Truth in Science has released an excellent report on mass torts and how unscrupulous lawyers use them to extort large…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Thanksgiving will be a little different this year. With the recent news about promising COVID-19 vaccines, next year’s turkey celebration should be closer to normal.
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Millennials, Gen Z Optimistic about Hard Work Leading to Prosperity
The Walton Family Foundation released an interesting survey recently that found that Generation Z (ages 13–23) and Millennial (ages 24–39) Americans are more optimistic…
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Biden to Focus on Public Sector Unions First?
All indications are that the Biden administration will be the most pro-labor one since at least Harry Truman’s. Biden has promised to defer to labor…
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Judge Rules in Favor of Retroactive Unapportioned Tax
In 2006, Charles and Kathleen Moore invested in a business aimed at providing affordable equipment to small-scale Indian farmers. No dividends have been returned to…
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Montreal Protocol Continues Process of Morphing Into A Climate Treaty
The 32nd Meeting of the Parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) will be held from…
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Can New York’s Hotel Industry Survive the Latest Union Victory?
Numerous New York City hotel owners are struggling to stay alive and their workers’ union isn’t exactly making it easy for them. In fact, there…
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Americans have Grown more Centrist, So Should the Parties
This last election was not normal. Record voter turnout, different voting procedures, and polarizing candidates makes comparing this cycle to any other difficult. But looking…
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On Online Speech, Sasse Stands Alone
There was an almost total lack of skepticism of expanding government regulation of online content moderation at yesterday’s Senate hearing with the CEOs of…
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Carbon Pricing Would Make Electricity Markets Less Efficient
On Monday (November 16, 2020), I submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on its proposed policy statement encouraging regional trading…
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COVID-19 Vaccine Development Is Testament to the Market’s Ability to Develop Life-Saving New Products
The announcement by drug maker Moderna that preliminary data from its still ongoing trial shows its COVID-19 vaccine is 95 percent effective is extremely encouraging.
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Welcome to the New CEI.org
At the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), we are constantly thinking of ways to more effectively expand the boundaries of freedom. With that goal in mind,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2020 election is finally, mercifully, over. Barring a surprise in the Georgia Senate runoffs, we will continue to have divided government. This arrangement typically…
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What Climate Policy Actions a Biden-Harris Administration Might Undertake its First 100 Days
What climate policy actions would a Biden-Harris administration undertake during its first 100 days? Climate Project 21, an organization co-chaired by…
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President Trump Should Waive Dodd-Frank Provision Harming Vaccine and Ventilator Production and Distribution
The announcement by Pfizer that the vaccine it is developing with German firm BioNTech may be 90 percent effective against COVID-19 is worth celebrating.
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Who Will “Blue Collar Joe” Work for?
Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States signals a possibly radical shift in labor policy, pushing things much further left than even when…