The Open Market Blog

• By: Michelle Minton
• 06/03/2010

Many in the Internet gambling industry are skeptical about the impact that the new gambling laws, which went into full effect this Tuesday,…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 06/01/2010

Today is the day that US credit processing companies must begin complying with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). After regulatory…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 05/13/2010

“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” —Salman Rushdie Today it was announced that the ACLU…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 05/03/2010

It isn’t greedy CEOs, global warming, or even a really bad, really expensive decade of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that is the cause…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 04/09/2010

As of April 6th any pub owner offering free drink specials, all you can drink deals, or drinking games could lose their liquor license, end…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/23/2010

CEI appreciates the virtual knuckle-bump we received from the folks over at Treehugger.com for our Human Achievement Hour efforts. Lloyd Alter’s post declares…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/19/2010

Oh yeah, I’m going there. Cigarettes are a human achievement. Just like food items (i.e. chocolate) or beverages (i.e. wine) cigarettes are a consumable product…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/17/2010

Leave it to man to improve upon mother nature. Sure, she’s got trees of every shape color and size, they rustle in the breeze, and…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/16/2010

Since the very first man installed the very first toilet inside the home, women have been there to nag him to put down the toilet…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/12/2010

Thank the calendars it’s Friday! Many of you have already left your jobs and are on the way to a pub to meet some friends…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/11/2010

Today’s Human Achievement of 2009 highlights an oft overlooked benefit of defending individuals’ right to freely innovate and compete: technologies become more available…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/09/2010

No, I’m not talking about a bad Bruce Willis movie (science has yet to come up with a way to prevent box office boredom bombs).

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/08/2010

To continue our daily series of human achievement highlighting, today’s post focuses on what could be the next great revolution in sexual health; the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/05/2010

March 27th at 8:30pm local time is Human Achievement Hour once again! In the lead-up to this year’s celebration of the event, we’ve…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/02/2010

March 27th at 8:30pm local time folks will be sitting in the dark to cast their vote for global climate action. While most of the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/24/2010

Could a private organization get away with handling the Snowpocalypse/Snowmegeddon the way the District of Columbia department of transportation handled it? Maybe, but they wouldn’t…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/17/2010

Vets mean serious business when it comes to protecting their industry from competition in Oklahoma. Similar to other states, OK vets are taking…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/12/2010

Imagine that you brave the cold to complete the laborious task of carving out a parking space on some snow encrusted street. How pissed off…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/11/2010

A billboard appeared in Wyoming, Minn. this week (the person/org responsible is still unknown) with the visage of former President George W. Bush asking…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/09/2010

Judges in California continue to surprise observers nationwide by repeatedly making rational decisions. At least, rational decisions about the adult film industry in the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 01/22/2010

Insurance commissioner of Washington State, Mike Kreidler wants the legislature to ban the use of credit scores from the measurements insurers use in determining…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 01/15/2010

Coastal residents in NC are trying to fight a deal that would allow insurance companies to increase the rates for property insurance in these…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/10/2009

As I blogged about earlier this month over at the Objective Standard, states are beginning to…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/09/2009

While it is certainly is good news that the state of Maryland hasn’t denied permission to developers hoping to install slots in a new…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/03/2009

Let’s face it, in this era, liberty-minded folk are in the minority (as if there was a time we were the majority). However, just because…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/20/2009

Earlier this week my colleague Ryan Young posted a blog about the FCC’s proposal to increase access to and decrease the cost of broadband…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/19/2009

More cash/Fewer Clunkers Via the Von Mises blog:  According to the consumer pricing index report released by the Bureau of Labor…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/15/2009

Here’s an interesting video from ReasonTV (a Reason Magazine offshoot) that mimics the popular UPS whiteboard commercials. In this video Nick…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/13/2009

The FDA is getting into the business of mixing drinks.  Employing a dangerously questionable array of regulatory powers, the agency is trying to determine if…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/28/2009

The Obama administration is patting itself on the back for saving the jobs of thousands of educators by doling out stimulus funds earlier in the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 09/03/2009

If you live in the general Washington, DC metro area you should be prepared for a fun-filled, traffic jamming time the weekend of September 11th.

• By: Michelle Minton
• 08/14/2009

That is if you find the usual crowd of holier than thou, environment-angelical, yuppie-types slightly annoying to navigate through while you purchase your organic produce…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 08/05/2009

Delaware is hitting back at the sports leagues lobbing threats in response to the state’s plan to legalize gambling on…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 07/01/2009

It is truly amazing to me that some people who call themselves “liberal,” “progressive,” and “tolerant,” are so irrationally afraid and intolerant of…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 06/18/2009

Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, I noticed something about Obama’s style of oration (and I’m not the only one). He…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 06/09/2009

Sin taxes are often justified by claiming that the item/behavior taxes costs the taxpayer money. By applying a tax, the government claims it can…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 06/08/2009

I don’t think there is anything that pisses off eco-socialists more than a free market answer to their problem of climate change. They simply don’t…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 05/19/2009

Maryland does not have enough money in the budget to pay for the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 04/13/2009

Like the original, modern tea parties should NOT be just about taxes. Americans should protest the presumption that government has the right to do anything…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/13/2009

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. But there is at least one reason to…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 02/12/2009

The beer industry is cheering a recently introduced bill that would roll back the excise tax on brewers in the Washington, DC…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/10/2008

If Bush wants to preserve what’s left of the dignity of his administration, I have one suggestion: sit on your hands. It is harder…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/06/2008

After completing an exhaustive comparison of European government-run monopolies and private gambling operators, the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA)…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/05/2008

Whether you were backing the other guy, or you objected to all of the candidates, free marketeers may find some reasons to…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/04/2008

Today, as you may have heard, is kind of an important day for some people. It is that day that comes along once every…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 11/03/2008

In the eternal battle of industry vs. regulators, the horseracing industry is employing a wily plan that just might save it from the…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/08/2008

There has been a lot of talk lately about regulators “working together” to get things done in Washington. Reaching across the aisle.  Compromise.

• By: Michelle Minton
• 04/30/2008

Cordelia Ashton is an angry woman; she feels that her insurance company is treating her unfairly. She feels this way because once…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/26/2008

The US government is no stranger to ridiculousness. As Eli pointed out in his recent study on dumb product bans, the logic (I use…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/25/2008

picture via freedomandshit.org I’ve been following the discussion on bad British teeth between Eli and Fran and while it may be…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/24/2008

Today the LA Times published an interesting opinion article that opposes health care mandates in a way I hadn’t yet heard. The authors claim…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/20/2008

To respond to Hans’s post: in order for the government to force Geno’s to serve everyone who stumbles up to the window indiscriminately, it…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/20/2008

James Stewart that is, in the movie Shenandoah. While considering the various angles of the DC gun ban debate, I happened to…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 03/05/2008

Despite that fact that most economist agree (to steal the global warming crowd’s favorite turn of phrase) that rent control has primarily negative effects, laws…

• 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: Michelle Minton
• 02/05/2008

Lawmakers on the Hill may have to walk a little more than usual thanks to the taxicab drivers’ strike that began today. Maybe they’ll…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/28/2007

Humanitarians are perplexed by the fact that, despite their hard work and the fact that it’s the epicenter of the world’s largest aid effort, starvation…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/26/2007

Imagine you are going on vacation and you pay your neighbor to tend to the hanging plants you have outside of your house. While you’re…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/12/2007

Chicago's Health Committee is set to vote on a measure this afternoon that would prohibit residents from owning chickens as pets. Alderwoman Lona Lane,…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 12/05/2007

As the first significant snowfall blankets the Washington, D.C. area, a word of warning: Be careful at whom you aim any snowballs. Hit the…