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Steel, Aluminum Tariffs to Remain Above Pre-Trump Levels
It is not asking much to undo President Trump’s doubling of U.S. tariffs, which are a major contributor to today’s supply network crisis. But apparently…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Third quarter GDP growth was an estimated at 2 percent, down from about 6 percent the previous two quarters. The 2021 Federal Register topped…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved COVID-19 booster shots for adults over 65, or with certain medical conditions, or who have job-related…
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I, Pencil Meets Today’s Political Realignment
Conservatives are different than they were just a few years ago, and it isn’t just because of Trump, who is more a symptom than a…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a four-day week, the economy got mixed news on employment and inflation, a dubious new antitrust bill was announced, and…
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The Radicalism of “Build Back Better” Is the Crisis that Classical Liberals Must Not Let Go to Waste
If the mantra of the day is, “Never let crisis go to waste,” then what are we to do when artificial crisis is being created…
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Sen. Klobuchar’s Half-Baked Antitrust Bill
A famous scene in the 1990s comedy movie Half Baked has a young Jon Stewart musing about how different everyday activities can be while…
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IRS Licensing of Tax Preparers Is Ripe for Abuse
Roughly a quarter of all jobs in America now require some sort of occupational license. Sixty years ago, it was about one job in…
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September Inflation Remains High and Fixable
Inflation remains high, with September’s numbers coming in at a 5.4 percent annualized rate, the highest number in a decade. The Federal Reserve’s target…
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The 2021 Economics Nobels: The Importance of Empiricism, and its Limits
The economics Nobel is given to individuals, but it often really intends to recognize schools of thought or methodological approaches. That is the case with…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Katherine Tai, the new U.S. Trade Representative, gave a major speech affirming President Biden’s commitment to former President Trump’s trade protectionism. Facebook’s website…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress averted a government shutdown and continued to negotiate over nearly $5 trillion in combined spending. Merck announced an antiviral pill for COVID-19 that…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI held its Julian Simon Award dinner, honoring the development economist William Easterly. We also paid remembrance to 2020’s winner, the late, great…
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Not Always an Antitrust Issue: Airline Edition
The Justice Department is gearing up to file an antitrust case against JetBlue and American Airlines over an alliance they recently formed. The Wall…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Inflation remains high at over 5 percent, California’s governor will finish out his term after a recall attempt failed, and culture warriors got outraged at…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2021 Federal Register surpassed 50,000 pages in a short Labor Day week. Fresh off a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, Congress began work on a $3.5…
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Jobless Claims Are Down, but Tensions Remain in COVID Recovery
Jobless claims are at their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic; 310,000 people filed first-time claims last week, down roughly 95 percent…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The United States officially ended its military occupation of Afghanistan. Hurricane Ida killed at least 40 people in the Northeastern U.S., while in the New…
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Fighting Bias and Misinformation, from Pierre Bayle’s 17th Century to the Social Media Age
Many people insist that media bias and misinformation are getting worse in the social media age, and we need to do something about it. Depending…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress seems to have reached a deal to combine the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. A $6 trillion budget bill remains…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big story of the week was the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Back home, a new school year began and the economic…
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The Progressive Playbook? Thoughts on a Slippery Slope
Is there a master plan behind the blunders of governments? Or are politicians just making it up as they go along? The cabal model…
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FTC Re-Files Facebook Antitrust Complaint
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted a revised antitrust complaint against Facebook today. In June, a judge threw out the initial complaint for…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big infrastructure bill in a dramatic marathon vote. It now goes to the House. Up next is a $3.5 trillion spending…
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New Inflation Numbers: Still High, Still Fixable
July’s inflation numbers are out. The annualized Consumer Price Index came in at 5.4 percent, compared to a 2 percent target. The month-to-month increase…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Nearly 1 million jobs were created in July, while Congress put the finishing touches on an infrastructure bill that will add about $250 billion…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Second quarter GDP grew at a 6.5 percent annualized pace, although COVID’s delta variant, inflation, and massive deficit spending could dampen growth going forward.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Olympic games began in Tokyo, after being delayed a year due to COVID-19. Congress is working its way through a $3.5 trillion spending bill…
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Carbon Tariffs Would Hurt Consumers, Slow Recovery
Over in the Washington Examiner, I take a look at the carbon tariff proposal that will likely be in the $3.5 trillion spending bill…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI announced that renowned development economist William Easterly will receive its 2021 Julian Simon Award at a two-day event in Washington, D.C., on…
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Green Protectionism on the Rise?
The $3.5 trillion budget proposal that the Democratic leadership in Congress is putting together will reportedly include the world’s first carbon tariffs, which are…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
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Relevant Markets, A Dozen Keystrokes, and the Google Play Store Antitrust Lawsuit
Yesterday, after markets closed, 36 state attorneys general announced another antitrust lawsuit against Google. This complaint centers around Google’s Play Store, in which it…
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A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus
Over in The Hill, Wayne Crews and I argue that more deficit spending won’t help the COVID recovery. Regulatory reform is more powerful stimulus…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The CEI community mourned the loss of Steve Horwitz, a principled classical liberal, a fine economist, and an even finer person. We’ll miss you, Steve.
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The 2021 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments Is Out Now
How much does regulation cost? It’s hard to tell, due to a lack of transparency. The government is legally required to tell the public how…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Negotiators reached a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure bill, at least for now. There were also marathon committee markup sessions for five antitrust bills. Meanwhile,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Members of Congress introduced five antitrust bills last week. Antitrust activist Lina Khan was confirmed to a seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and…
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A Better Approach to Tariff Diplomacy
In diplomacy, carrots tend to be more effective than sticks. Yet, two consecutive administrations have used tariff threats to try to achieve their objectives. Former…
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Boeing-Airbus Dispute Remains Unsolved: Tariffs Gone, Subsidies Stay
The European Union and the United States eagerly announced today that they had resolved their 17-year dispute over aerospace subsidies. They exaggerate their claims.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economic recovery continues, but Congress is still intent on passing unneeded stimulus and infrastructure spending. Inflation is also up, and five antitrust bills are…
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CPI Inflation Indicator Hits 5 Percent: Not Stagflation, But a Useful Warning
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May came out this morning. At 5 percent, it was higher than expected. CPI has its flaws…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Unemployment is back under 6 percent, and it’s looking more and more like the economy is reverting back to trend. We’re not there yet, but…
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Steel Companies Lobby for Steel Tariffs, Biden to Double Lumber Tariffs
One of the first things President Biden should have done upon taking office was to eliminate the Trump tariffs. This would have provided potent economic…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI’s Wayne Crews looked at the Biden administration’s dismantling transparency reforms for guidance documents and warned that political spending on scientific research would…
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Microsoft to Retire Internet Explorer: Lessons for Today’s Antitrust Cases
Microsoft just announced it will retire its Internet Explorer browser next year. This is the same program that was at the heart of an…
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What Inflation Is, and What It Isn’t
It looks like we’re in for a bit of inflation. After decades of stable 2 percent inflation, the latest indicators say it’s moving up…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The best news of the week was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising that vaccinated people can safely go mask-free pretty much anywhere.
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One of Google’s Antitrust Cases Dismissed, for Now
A District judge on Thursday dismissed a private antitrust case against Google brought by a group of advertisers. It does not affect separate cases…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Facebook Oversight Board conditionally upheld former President Trump’s Facebook ban. Many Republican responses showed that they either do not understand the First Amendment or…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economy bounced back in a big way, according to numbers released on Thursday. Things are not quite back where they were, but the trend…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news of the week was the guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Senate Republicans continued their longtime strategy of bargaining with…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress played a round of good idea-bad idea last week. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) introduced a bill for a regulatory budget, similar to the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen floated the idea of a global minimum corporate tax and Amazon workers in Alabama voted against unionizing. The Biden…
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Who Pays Corporate Taxes?
Congress is considering increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent to help pay for the big infrastructure bill it is currently…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington’s attention flitted back and forth between beginning work on a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and a brewing sex scandal allegedly involving Rep. Matt Gaetz and…
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U.S. Trade Representative Tai Should Rethink Keeping China Tariffs in Place
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal interviewed Katherine Tai, the new United States Trade Representative. She has a lot of work ahead of her…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A massive container ship turned sideways and blocked the Suez canal, halting roughly $10 billion worth of international trade per day, or about $400…
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Putting a Price on Conspiracy Theories, Revisited
Conspiracy theories are back in the news, so it’s a good time to revisit my recent Fortune article about putting prices on conspiracy theories.
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Restoring Separation of Powers and Improving Resilience with the USA Act
Separation of powers is a core principle of American government. But things haven’t gone quite as planned. Congress, the first branch, has increasingly taken a…
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Book Review: Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg
On March 25, 2021 at noon ET, CEI is hosting a double book forum featuring Johan Norberg, the 2019 winner of CEI’s Julian L. Simon…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI published its new Agenda for Congress. We also held a launch event featuring Sen. Rand Paul. Meanwhile, the 2021 Federal Register surpassed…
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Agenda for Congress: Regulatory Reform
CEI’s new agenda for Congress is out now. If you’re interested only in certain issues, individual chapters are downloadable here. We also hosted…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress passed a $1.9 trillion spending bill, some of which may actually be COVID-related. Agencies issued new rules ranging from eastern hellbenders to reentry licenses.
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Why Facebook’s Antitrust Cases Should Be Dropped
Facebook filed today to dismiss antitrust lawsuits against it today by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several state attorneys general. One of the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
One sign that the worst of COVID is likely now past is that instead of disease and economic hardship, people got riled up over Mr.
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Some Good Tariff News
I’ve written before about the 17-year-long dispute between the United States and the European Union over Boeing and Airbus subsidies. Each jurisdiction has placed…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
COVID-19 cases are finally in decline as vaccinations continue, to the point where there is reason for cautious optimism. Congress was busy with a stimulus…
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The Regional Differences Argument against a $15 Minimum Wage
The strongest political argument against increasing the federal minimum wage is the regional differences argument. Basically, while a $15 minimum wage might not be a…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week due to Washington’s Birthday (see my colleague John Berlau’s recent book, George Washington, Entrepreneur). The Perseverance rover landed on…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Former President Trump’s impeachment trial was the big new story, though there is little suspense about the outcome. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging from…
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Upcoming CEI Event: Bart Wilson on The Property Species
At noon ET on Thursday, February 11, CEI is hosting an event with the experimental economist Bart Wilson, author of The Property…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big budget reconciliation bill last week on a 50-50 tie broken by Vice President Harris. This week will see the impeachment…
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Proposed European Tech Regulations Will Backfire, Badly
The European Union recently proposed two major tech regulation bills aimed at America’s tech industry, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As the new administration settles in, it appears they will continue many Trump administration policies, such as “Buy American” provisions and trade protectionism. Meanwhile,…
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New President, Same Bad Policies
The Trump administration’s trade war gave economics teachers countless real-world examples of bad policy they can use in the classroom. A new open letter…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday. With the usual end-of-administration midnight rush now over, things will likely slow down. It takes time for new appointees…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy MLK Day, everyone. The Trump administration’s final full week was an eventful one. The president was impeached for a second time. The usual end-of-administration…
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Economics Can Help Explain Conspiracy Theorists
There is a lot of conspiracy theory garbage floating around. On January 6, it took a violent turn. Five people died in a coup attempt…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
After last week’s insurrection at the Capitol, the outgoing president, several elected officials, and their supporters have some soul-searching to do. Meanwhile, agencies continued to…
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Toward Simplifying Antitrust Regulation
Antitrust regulation is a complex mess. Multiple agencies have overlapping jurisdiction with no set rules for determining who takes which cases. One of the antitrust…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy new year, everyone. We made it. 2020 was rough, but as I argued last week, it was not the worst year ever. 2020…
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Regulation in 2020: Some Quick Numbers
The 251st and final issue of the 2020 Federal Register was released this morning. Here are some of the initial findings: Federal agencies issued 3,353…
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2020 Was Difficult. It Was Not the Worst Year Ever
It’s been a hard year, and I am hardly alone in being glad it’s almost over. But was 2020 the worst year ever? Over…
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Best Books of 2020: Joseph Henrich – The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
It’s early, but The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich will likely be…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2024 election season officially began on Wednesday. The 2020 Federal Register topped 70,000 pages right on election day, and is on pace to be…
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The 2020 Election Actually Had Some Free-Market Victories
Neither presidential candidate has much interest in limited government. But over at National Review, I look at some neglected down-ballot victories…