The Open Market Blog

• By: John Berlau
• 09/15/2008

The weeks leading up to a Presidential election have always been called the "silly season." But the attacks from bloggers and the media on vice-presidential…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/08/2008

There are many words -- and most them not nice -- to describe the new government conservatorship and planned bailout of Fannie Mae and…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/05/2008

As Open Market readers know, the Competitive Enterprise Institute recently helped achieve a very significant victory wrapped within a defeat at the DC Circuit Court…

• By: John Berlau
• 08/17/2008

For more than two years, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been involved in a constitutional challenge to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the giant…

• By: John Berlau
• 08/07/2008

Ain’t it something! Congress just got through with passing a multi-billion dollar bailout to the government-sponsored housing enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/26/2008

The new book America’s Health Care Crisis Solved has been praised as providing a detailed, free-market solution for healthcare’s future. This it does, but…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/24/2008

Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House yesterday — of which there will likely be many — one of…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/23/2008

While pretty steep, $25 billion of our tax dollars isn’t the only thing many Americans could lose in the just-unveiled GSE bailout bill likely…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/18/2008

It is in times of national emergencies that measures infringing on privacy and civil liberties are advocated — and sometimes rushed through without even being…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/14/2008

The near-collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have taken the markets and the financial media by surprise, but is something that CEI schlolars…

• By: John Berlau
• 06/18/2008

In the past few days, the subprime mess has morphed into a Congressional ethics scandal. Portfolio magazine has revealed that Senate Banking Comittee Chairman…

• By: John Berlau
• 06/16/2008

It's almost a Washington truism that anytime Congress creates a "trust fund" for a certain policy issue, the money flowing into this "trust fund" will…

• By: John Berlau
• 06/09/2008

The business media is abuzz about a speech and Financial Times op-ed today by Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Tim Geithner calling…

• 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: 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: John Berlau
• 05/07/2008

Many commentators, such as CEI’s Hans Bader, have done a diligent job tracking the costs to taxpayers of the mortgage bailout scheduled to be…

• By: John Berlau
• 05/05/2008

Many commentators, such as Open Market’s Hans Bader, have done a diligent job tracking the costs to taxpayers of the mortgage bailout scheduled to be…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/21/2008

I've been withholding comment about the Federal Reserve Bank's Bear Stearns intervention until I've had a chance to appraise the deal, including the extent of…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/05/2008

What happened in Washington state is frightening. It is further confirmation of a trend in eco-terrorism I report on in Eco-Freaks. Eco-terrorism…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/03/2008

Hans, it’s also wrong to refer to this Supreme Court as anti-investor. Two weeks ago, as I have noted, the Court unanimously ruled in…

• 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?…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/11/2008

I can’t remember a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that received more media coverage and broke more news events. As fate would have it,…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/07/2008

Eli, I agree with Michelle on this one. There is no justification for regulating the fares of either taxis or pick-up limousine services.

• By: John Berlau
• 02/05/2008

Hans, you are certainly right that the credit rating agencies goofed in giving their highest credit rating to mortgage-backed securities before these new instruments…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/25/2008

Iain, you're so right that it's not just bad policy, but bad politics, for Republican candidates not to challenge costly regulations aimed at fending…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/18/2008

After Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke basically said yesterday that making the Bush tax cuts permanent should be off the table for now, in…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/14/2008

For the past few political seasons, diehard political buffs will frequently visit one site to get the latest info on various races and campaigns:…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/04/2008

Today's jobs survey points to slowing growth, but we are still far from a recession. And as my CEI colleagues and I have said before,…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/03/2008

On New Year's Day, the SEC suffered a defeat, and I hailed it as a victory. Nothing unusual about that scenario, except this was not…

• By: John Berlau
• 12/28/2007

Anna Schwartz, longtime colleague of the late Milton Friedman and celebrated free-market economist in her own right, had some interesting things to say about…

• By: John Berlau
• 12/16/2007

While much of the media attention has focused on National Review‘s recent editorial endorsing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, another of the magazine’s editorials may…

• By: John Berlau
• 12/06/2007

“Wall Street Falls on Mortgage Unease” read the headline of an Associated Press story posted on Yahoo Finance just after the markets closed on…

• By: John Berlau
• 11/26/2007

As the joke goes, there’s good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first? Upon hearing no answer from the readers of…

• By: John Berlau
• 11/15/2007

Yesterday I had an article in National Review Online analyzing Rep. Barney Frank's answer to subprime woes. As I write, Frank's "Mortgage Reform and…

• By: John Berlau
• 11/01/2007

Talk about the blind leading the blind! Superbank Citigroup Inc. was supposed to be a big player in Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's "superconduit" to provide…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/29/2007

Today, I have a piece in American Thinker on how environmental regulations, much more than global warming, were likely a factor in the intensity…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/24/2007

Hans, excellent points about the folly of a government-organized bailout. Indeed the Dow had gone back to 14,000 the week before Paulson opened his…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/05/2007

Michelle, Excellent points about the lack of correlation in Australia between global warming and forest fires. And, for an in-depth look at what’s really…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/03/2007

At the OpenMarket, most of our writing is about law and policy. But ultimately, it's people that make the "open market" work. When market rules…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/17/2007

D.C. Councilman and former mayor Marion Barry, as well as some of his colleagues on the City Council, have a novel idea on how to…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/17/2007

Last night, in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that on his first date with Andrea Mitchell, now…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/12/2007

I recently returned from my first visit to Columbia, Mo., since I graduated from the University of Missouri there 1994. I am a graduate of…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/12/2007

Angela, Thanks for noting the cite on why the SEC “reforms” of Sarbox would still mandate that companies be suggested to broad reviews for…

• By: John Berlau
• 08/31/2007

Perhaps wanting to preempt Congress before it returns next Tuesday, President Bush offered his own plan to deal with troubles in the housing market.

• By: John Berlau
• 08/17/2007

Ivan, those are good points that Oliva makes at the Mises blog. But there is another interesting aspect that makes this an especially…

• By: John Berlau
• 08/16/2007

As we remember Elvis Presley today, on the 30th anniversary of his death, free-marketeers may find of interest a particular overlooked song Elvis sang about…

• By: John Berlau
• 08/09/2007

I don’t know if George Bush, or anyone in his administration for that matter, is an avid reader of Open Market. They sure haven’t been…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/31/2007

An Associated Press story today on proposed "carried interest" tax hike legislation aimed at soaking private equity had this interesting description of what the…

• By: John Berlau
• 07/20/2007

As the 110th Congress has passed its six-month mark, there is one committee that has significantly improved. This is the House Small Business Committee, which…

• By: John Berlau
• 05/16/2007

My friend Phil Kerpen rightly takes to task the Congression Democratic leadership in his column on National Review Online for what seems to be…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/15/2007

Iain, in addition to Eli, here’s another CEI Yank putting in a good word for your home country. They do it right…

• By: John Berlau
• 03/10/2007

CEI would never argue that the current federal student loan programs are perfect. They are a mishmash of subsidies and regulations that cause distortions, not…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/28/2007

In selecting Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” as the winner for best documentary, the Academy Awards sent a disturbing message to aspiring documentary makers. The…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/22/2007

Intrepid Journalist Kevin Mooney of CNSNews.com just filed a can’t-miss story on Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. On the verge of the Academy Awards,…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/14/2007

The news media is sending a scary Valentine to American couples. They’re claiming that Valentine’s Day roses imported from Colombia may have been “dipped in…

• By: John Berlau
• 02/06/2007

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has all but declared himself a Republican presidential candidate by filing an official “statement of candidacy” and saying he is “in…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/31/2007

By proclamation of several cities and states, Monday was Milton Friedman Day. CEI was one of many free-market groups that joined in this…

• By: John Berlau
• 01/23/2007

Consumer Reports’ retraction last week of its flawed testing of infant car seats puts in question the magazine’s credibility as an unbiased product evaluator.

• By: John Berlau
• 11/06/2006

One of this election’s “October Surprises” may have come on Nov. 1, when Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senator from New York and chairman of the Democratic…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/27/2006

Republicans have long been accused of being the party of Wall Street, a campaign charge that’s again being leveled in this election. But on the…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/23/2006

CEI has nothing against tattoos. Some of our staffers proudly sport them. And we generally have a live-and-let-live, libertarian philosophy. But now, in a twist,…

• By: John Berlau
• 10/12/2006

There’s a saying that the most revealing part of Academy Awards speeches is who isn’t thanked. There is often a similar truism about…

• By: John Berlau
• 09/25/2006

An op-ed I wrote for last Sunday’s Washington Times talked about the battle over the interchange fees that banks and credit card companies charge to retailers. The…