The Open Market Blog

• By: John Berlau
• 05/30/2008

Last week, I discovered a bizarre requirement for a fingerprint registrty in housing legislation that had just passed the Senate Banking Committee. In an OpenMarket…

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/30/2008

Contrary to popular belief, regulators tend to be very clever people. They know the rules of the game, and they know to how to use…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/30/2008

The Greenlining Institute, which is funded by money diverted from class-action lawsuits brought in the name of consumers, is now lobbying the California legislature…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/29/2008

The Texas Supreme Court has just affirmed an appeals court ruling that Texas’s Child Protective Services (CPS) illegally seized more than 400 children whose…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/29/2008

Ethanol subsidies are contributing to worldwide hunger.  Islamic extremist groups are exploiting that hunger by tying food aid to anti-Western political indoctrination.  (Ethanol…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/29/2008

The Supreme Court made up some new laws on Tuesday because it thought they were a good idea, as the Washington Post’s editorial today notes.

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/29/2008

State Child Protective Services (CPS) are increasingly seizing children from their parents for trivial reasons or over baseless, anonymous allegations, as the Washington Examiner describes…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/28/2008

Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) illegally seized 465 children from parents in a religious sect based on an anonymous, fabricated allegation by a woman outside the sect…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 05/28/2008

I wonder what Matt Welch means when he accuses Czech President Vaclav Klaus of “resisting most efforts to come to public (let alone legal)…

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/28/2008

Barack Obama says he would keep in place the 47-year old Cuban trade embargo if elected President. CNN says Obama views the trade restrictions…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 05/28/2008

What can you say about a health care system that treats animals more quickly than humans?  Reports Macleans: Dr. Danny Joffe is only half…

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 05/27/2008

The Washington Examiner has an editorial today titled “Environmentalism is not about the Environment.”  Indeed. …

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/27/2008

The Washington Examiner has an interesting editorial today called “Environmentalism Isn’t About the Environment.”  It describes how environmental measures expand and metastasize government power in ways…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/26/2008

In the Washington Examiner, Daniel Ballon and Lawrence McQuillan criticize a bill pending in Congress that would lead to credit card companies reducing their rebates to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/25/2008

The federal government massively subsidizes corn-based ethanol production, even though it consumes as much energy as it generates, thus doing nothing to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  Yet the federal government…

• By: Fran Smith
• 05/23/2008

In a strong defense of international trade  and the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, President George W. Bush in a Fox interview today also worried…

• By: John Berlau
• 05/23/2008

Author’s note: See follow-up post “Are Borrowers Next?” Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and…

• By: Fran Smith
• 05/22/2008

On Reason‘s blog today, Michael C. Moynihan asks the question, “Does Yusuf al-Qaradawi Qualify as an Intellectual?” Moynihan was referring to al…

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/22/2008

Right now South Korea is working toward a free trade agreement with the U.S. It could increase trade between the two nations by…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 05/22/2008

Stuck with limited ISP choices, broadband users are increasingly angry with the growing number of providers that poke around in their customers' traffic.

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/22/2008

“An appeals court has ruled that Texas had no right to seize hundreds of children from a polygamous sect.”  The children were seized after someone pretending to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/21/2008

In the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins explains why mortgage bailout proposals would reward greedy and foolish borrowers and speculators in certain regions at…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/21/2008

The Wall Street Journal criticized yesterday’s appeals court ruling that paper money discriminates against the blind.  Even the National Federation of the Blind…

• By: Fran Smith
• 05/21/2008

In an editorial today, the Washington Times skewers the 35 Republican Senators and 100 representatives who voted for what the WT called the “odious”…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/21/2008

In the Wall Street Journal, economist and former Carter Administration official Fred Bergsten chides Congressional leaders for blocking votes on trade agreements with friendly countries like…

• By: Fran Smith
• 05/20/2008

According to their press release today, the Business Roundtable convened a policy meeting with CEOs of major companies and members of Congress to urge…

• By: Hans Bader
• 05/20/2008

A divided D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 2-to-1 that paper money discriminates against the blind in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, in American…