The Open Market Blog

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 02/28/2008

Public policy is rife with unintended consequences. The newest is that soaring food prices caused by ethanol subsidies in the U.S. are causing food prices…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/28/2008

More proof that wind power is no panacea for the nation’s looming electricity crisis. The wind dropped in Texas, and caused blackouts: ERCOT…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/28/2008

It’s E-Day in the UK, a national ‘awareness’ day backed by major environmental groups and religious organizations, and the BBC, aimed at getting Brits…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/28/2008

These days it seems that you can slap the word “addiction” after any activity and escape personal responsibility for poor decision making. Moreover, in…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/28/2008

Does this make sense? At the same time the House thinks it’s a good idea to provide Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia with duty-free…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

Government social workers have an incentive to overreact to erroneous allegations of child abuse, and take children away from loving parents, because they reasonably…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 02/27/2008

I find it ironic for Virginia State Delegate Dave Albo to decry businesses being “scammed,” when he has built a reputation for …

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

The Virginia General Assembly last year voted to let counties increase their commercial property tax in order to pay for new transportation projects. The counties…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/27/2008

The Supreme Court decided two discrimination cases this week that confirm that the Supreme Court is not “pro-business “in discrimination cases, as liberal journalists claim.

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/27/2008

With talk of recession, inflation, and stagnation dominating financial news, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in his written testimony to the House Financial Services…

• By: Iain Murray
• 02/27/2008

Biofuels have recently come under attack from their erstwhile supporters in the liberal environmentalist movement for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it’s the turn of…

• By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.
• 02/27/2008

William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away today. How very sad. For some libertarians, it all started with Rand. For me, it started with Buckley. WFB…

• By: Clyde Wayne Crews
• 02/27/2008

GAO FINDS FEDERAL DATA PROTECTION LAGGING “The GAO says that despite a steady stream of embarrassing computer security breaches, many major U.S. federal…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 02/26/2008

A new CEI paper by one of our fellows–okay, me–outlines the five dumbest product bans we could find in the United States. My personal…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 02/26/2008

March wheat futures went for a record $24 yesterday, while the May wheat futures rose the maximum 90 cents allowed to $11.99 a bushel…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/26/2008

Cato’s Dan Griswold and Juan Carlos Hidalgo had an excellent article yesterday in the Latin Business Chronicle defending the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/26/2008

Today, I have two posts at Point of Law. One is about how a recent Supreme Court decision may preempt state regulations on vehicle…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/25/2008

American immigration law is utterly dysfunctional. Legal immigrants who fight for America in Iraq and Afghanistan wait years to become citizens. Skilled workers needed…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/25/2008

In the Washington Times today, Donald Lambro focuses on the recent primary in Wisconsin and questions the attacks on trade by presidential hopefuls Hillary…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/25/2008

This week, I am guest blogging at Point of Law. My first blog post is about ideological and sexual double standards, which are…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 02/25/2008

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page exposes the cozy relationship between Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and the state’s trial bar. Should state Attorneys…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 02/25/2008

I recently came across Tumbleweed, the self-styled “tiny house company.” The houses that Tumbleweed builds in California and delivers to any site in the…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 02/22/2008

Today in Reason, Michael Moynihan offers an appropriate epitaph to the useful idiots in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America whose knees have long…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/22/2008

The Duke lacrosse players are now suing Duke, its president, and various government officials. They were belatedly recognized as innocent after months of being…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/22/2008

In the Detroit Free Press today, Gary Shapiro, the head of the Consumer Electronics Association, has a really hard-hitting op-ed pointing out how free…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/22/2008

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court has upheld a state-enforced garbage monopoly even though Washington State has a state constitutional “equal…

• By: Fran Smith
• 02/22/2008

I was intrigued today when I read the Man Booker Prize announcement of a new award to celebrate 40 years of prizes for the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/21/2008

Earlier, we wrote about a bill (S. 2045), the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act, that would impose criminal penalties on company executives, and…

• By: Hans Bader
• 02/21/2008

Virginia is facing serious problems, like a budget deficit and unanticipated shortfalls in transportation funding, despite mushrooming taxes in recent years. So what…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/20/2008

A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court’s decision in Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta was denounced by shareholder activists and much of the media as “anti-investor.” Why?…