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The New Joe Biden – Friend of American Industry?
In recent months, President Biden has undertaken several measures he claims will encourage domestic drilling, mining, and manufacturing. It’s a big change from 2021 when…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
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One Way to Address Worker Shortage: A Commission to Clear Out Job-Blocking Regulations
Earlier this week, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee held a hearing to discuss ways to address the worker shortage. There are more than…
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As Gas Prices Rises, Ridesharing Industry Adjusts
Rideshare companies are currently feeling the pinch from high gas prices, but some of their drivers are weathering the change better than others. High gas…
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Crypto Volatility Heightens with Panic-Driven Regulation
In reaction to the volatile events of the last few weeks, both the stock and cryptocurrency markets have taken a deep dive. While this downturn…
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CPI Slightly Up, Inflation Slightly Down?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May increased to an annualized 8.6 percent rate over the last year, reaching another new 40-year high. Even so,…
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Dead Man’s Switch: Biden Administration Fights Railroad Automation
Of all modes of transportation, one would think that railways would be at the leading edge of automation. After all, they don’t use public roads,…
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America’s Heat Pump Emergency
The Biden administration announced it will use the Defense Production Act (DPA)—a Korean War-era statute allowing presidents to demand American industry increase production of anything…
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“They’re Taking My Stuff!” – Now on Video!
News that involves the police is inherently dramatic, and stories about what police officers do regularly make the news—asset seizure of hundreds of thousands of…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The unemployment rate held steady at 3.6 percent. The K-Pop group BTS made an official visit to the White House. Agencies issued new regulations…
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Eleven Lousy Tech Bills from the 117th Congress: Fair Repair Act
People drop their phones a lot. According to the electronic repair company uBreakiFix, 95 million smartphones are dropped annually in the U.S. and two…
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The Stablecoin Contagion That Wasn’t
A rare, recent real-life test case allowed observers to contrast government warnings with real-world events. Reining in cryptocurrency markets has become a key priority for…
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Eleven Lousy Tech Legislation from the 117th Congress: Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act
There is a late entry to the 117th Congress’ list of worst tech legislation, requiring a new title for the blog series. There were already…
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More Staycations This Summer, Thanks to Biden’s Gas Price-Raising Agenda
Memorial Day Weekend kicks off the summer driving season, and vacationers will be paying record-high gasoline prices—and quite a few families may even have to…
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Restating the Case for Free Trade
The case for free trade needs to be restated frequently. Politicians keep pushing the same protectionist policies, as though maybe this time the results will…
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George Washington, George Jarkesy, and the Administrative State’s Lack of Fundamental Justice
The recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Jarkesy v. SEC is a victory for limited constitutional government…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Just before the long Memorial Day weekend, the third version of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a major antitrust bill, was introduced in…
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Congress Must Decide How to Choose Between Courts and Agency Adjudication
For some time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has had a choice of prosecutorial forums. It has been able to choose between prosecuting violators…
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EEOC Nominee Kalpana Thinks Transparency Is an Important Value, Less Clear on Need to Abide by It
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may become a lot less accountable in its decision making than it was under the Trump administration should President Biden’s…
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Banning Menthol Cigarettes Will Do Nothing to Promote Racial Justice
Public support for the War on Drugs has never been lower, due in no small part to increased awareness about the devastation drug criminalization…
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Trade, Mission Creep, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework
President Biden announced this week a major economic agreement with a dozen countries in the Indo-Pacific region, to be called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework…
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Court Tells NLRB Sometimes a Joke Is In Fact a Joke
In a significant win for common sense, a federal appeals court has found that sometimes a joke is just a joke, even when it…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The government’s Disinformation Board was ended before it began. President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to address the baby formula shortage. The…
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Fifth Circuit Upholds the Right to A Jury Trial Against the SEC
John Thomas Financial CEO Thomas Belesis was riding high, having been awarded the 2011 Businessman of the Year Award from the New York Republicans. While…
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Baby Formula and Regulatory Failure
A lot of people are blaming free markets for the baby formula shortage. As the economist Jagdish Bhagwati might say, the problem with this is…
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Ten Terrible Tech Bills from the 117th Congress: Banning Surveillance Advertising Act of 2022
DuckDuckGo is a success story. Launched in 2008, the online search engine has centered its product around privacy. In short, they “don’t collect or…
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Let’s Not Allow Davis-Bacon to Further Clog Job Arteries
The Biden administration is proposing to make government contracting even more expensive by revamping the Davis-Bacon Act. This law requires that related workers on…
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Ten Terrible Tech Bills from the 117th Congress: ACCESS Act
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), launched in 1997, was arguably the first social media platform, reaching over 36 million users by 2001. The Federal Trade…
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Credit Union Liberalization Bill Clears Away Never-Needed Red Tape
When I testified last July at a high-profile hearing on financial inclusion, I urged members of the House Financial Services Committee to liberalize regulations…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Inflation remained high at 8.3 percent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was confirmed to a second term. A baby formula shortage is exposing the…