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Facebook’s $5 Billion Privacy Fine Almost Certainly Too High
Facebook has faced intense criticism from lawmakers and regulators since last spring, when The Observer and The New York Times reported that data from over…
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Marijuana Industry Bank Reform on Capitol Hill Agenda
While the continued legalization of recreational and medicinal use of marijuana at the state level has undoubtedly been a win for liberty, there remains much…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The UK parliament will soon be suspended for a five-week period, something the U.S. Congress should consider emulating as often as possible. Over in the…
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Loco Four Loko Hysteria
It’s only a matter of time before Phusion Projects' new hard seltzer hits shelves, which means that it’s only a matter of time before alarmists…
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Free-Market Groups Urge Reform of National Environmental Policy Act
CEI and five other free market groups submitted comments on the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Draft National Environmental Policy Act Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse…
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How Accounting Reform Can Help Address Public Pension Underfunding
By deferring compensation, in the form of pensions, and pushing those costs well into the future, politicians can gain favor with government employee unions, which…
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Lung Disease Outbreak Caused by Black Market, not Vaping
News media around the world have picked up on the story of “vaping-linked” hospitalizations. Most have omitted the fact that black market marijuana e-liquid has…
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Union Wish List Bill Would Harm Workers and the Economy
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a report that analyzes the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2019 (H.R. 2474), which the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A humorous diplomatic row over Greenland was not the only news of the week, with China tariffs, divisive rhetoric, and recession fears also putting in…
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Senator Bernie Sanders Releases $16 Trillion Green New Deal Plan
On August 22nd, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a 14,000-word plan to implement the Green New Deal—a detailed blueprint to “avert climate catastrophe and create…
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Washington Post Uses Dubious Data on ‘Extreme’ Climate Change
The Washington Post ran a long, complicated story by four reporters on August 14th headlined “Extreme climate change is here.”…
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Antitrust Basics: Think Long Term, Not Just Short Term
Moore’s Law states that computing power doubles every year and a half or so. An antitrust case against IBM, by contrast, lasted for 13 years,…
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David Koch (1940-2019), R.I.P.
Friend, philanthropist, inventor, and industrialist David Koch has died at the age of 79. He was a father and husband. Known best for his pro-liberty…
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Heretics in the Church of Tobacco Control
H.P. Lovecraft opined in 1931 that “if religion were true its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into artificial conformity, but would merely…
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When Did Conservatives Stop Loving a Free Economy?
National Review contributor and rage-inducing controversialist Kevin Williamson has a new book out, “The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics,” which…
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Sealand, from Pirate Radio to Seasteading
Setting up a sovereign free territory has long been a dream of libertarian mavericks, from the ill-fated Republic of Minerva to the nascent Free Republic…
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Will T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Increase Prices?
Lots of things influence prices and, of course, not all are influenced by the same factors. However, the lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general…
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Antitrust Basics: Corruption and Rent-Seeking
Rent-seeking is economics jargon for chasing after unfair special favors from government. Businesses and individuals have a large menu of rent-seeking options to choose from,…
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Where Facebook Interim Report on Bias Falls Short
Today former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), in fulfillment of an arrangement with Facebook, released an independent Interim Report (and accompanying op-ed) cataloging the primary concerns of…
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Debt Collectors Keep Credit Market Flowing
Debt collecting is a profession that gets little love, but given the social good done by debt collectors who operate ethically and follow the rules,…
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Cataloging Regulatory Costs of Cronyism and Rent-Seeking in a Self-Interested Administrative State
Rent-seeking as a policy concern has been done to death: It’s been described over and over how regulation is often not about elevating the public…
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PRO Act Undermines Employee Choice
Democrats in Congress introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act with the state goal of strengthening union power and increasing union membership, which…
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Business Roundtable Restates Obvious: Stakeholders Matter (and Always Have)
There’s a flurry of news coverage this morning about the Business Roundtable releasing a new public statement on “the purpose of a corporation.” Whereas previous…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week was the Federal Register’s busiest of the year, with its 3,075 pages almost tripling a normal week’s count. A new economically significant regulation…
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Climate Study Urges Blacklisting of Contrarians
Authors of a study published recently in the journal Nature Communications want editors and journalists to blacklist “climate change contrarians.” Of course, the study doesn’t…
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VIDEO: Why Beer Sucks in Socialist Countries
The trend of younger voters allegedly becoming more favorable to socialism has alarmed and chagrined many observers recently, from members of the New York Post…
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Children’s Environmental Health Programs Translate to Junk Science
For more than a decade now, the federal government has doled out millions of dollars to fund junk science and political activism under the guise…
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States Making Predictable Grab for Revenue via Online Sales Taxes
Fallout from the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair Supreme Court decision, which allowed remote sales tax collection from online purchases, has begun and The Wall Street Journal editorialized…
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Modernizing Passenger Facility Charge Can Promote Airport Investment, Reduce Federal Spending
The passenger facility charge (PFC) is a local airport user fee that serves as an important revenue tool with less federal meddling than its primary…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Rumblings of a “Navarro recession” are growing louder, and the 2019 Federal Register will likely crack the 40,000-page mark early this week. Rulemaking agencies published…
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Climate Rent-Seeking Backfiring on Chemours
In perhaps the most egregious example of climate change-related rent seeking to date, chemical giants Chemours and Honeywell have joined forces with environmental activists to…
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New Rule to Limit State Government Abuse of Clean Water Act for Climate Activism
Making good on a promise made in an April 10th Executive Order entitled Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a rule restricting…
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Climate Blame Game
In “Reformed Climate Deniers Don’t Deserve Redemption,” author Dave Leviton argues that Republican pollster Frank Luntz had no business testifying before the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee…
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Leaked White House Executive Order on ‘Censorship’ Violates Two Basic Constitutional Tenets
Earlier this week it was reported that the Trump administration was drafting an executive order to combat perceived “censorship” of conservatives on online platforms such…
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Underfunded Public Pensions Put Future Taxpayers on the Hook
One of the most well-known and enduring lessons of public choice economics is the dynamic of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. Well-organized groups have both…
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VIDEO: Where the Regulatory State Came From
Our friends at the Pacific Legal Foundation have a funny and insightful explainer video on the historical development of the regulatory state (also known as…
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Limits of ‘Soft Law’ Approach to Tech Regulation
Can the regulation of new technology be voluntary and non-coercive? In a recent op-ed for The Hill, Mercatus Center law and technology analyst Jennifer Huddleston…
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Evils of ‘Craving Engineering’
America is a decidedly liberal (in the sense of being tolerant) nation comprised of people with different—often competing—worldviews. As a culture, we value the ability to…
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The Millionaires and Billionaires of Environmental Politics
There’s a story that’s told in newspapers, on news networks, and in the buzzing of Twitter. In this story, there’s a clear good guy, a…
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Nipping at Big Tech’s Heels: Competition in Social Media
There has much bemoaning and hand-wringing by members of Congress on the alleged dangers of social media.
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Response to State Lawsuit against T-Mobile/Sprint: Mergers Signal Dynamic Markets
The end of the first blog post in this series warned that the real result of a successful lawsuit to block the merger of Sprint…
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Guidance Documents of the Week: Agriculture, Housing, Management
Guidance documents are statements of policy issued by your favorite alphabet soup of agencies, which more often than not translate into law, despite rarely going…
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Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Except Those with Eating Disorders)
The goal of the government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans is to provide simple advice that promotes nutritional health, but for millions of Americans it may do…
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State Lawsuit against T-Mobile/Sprint Counterproductive for Consumers
State attorneys general from fourteen states and the District of Columbia have sued to block the merger of mobile phone and Internet service providers T-Mobile…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a pre-recess Parthian shot, the Senate passed a massive new spending bill that would increase federal spending by $320 billion over two years and…
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Advocacy Journalism Gears up to Promote UN Climate Conference
The Columbia Journalism Review reported on July 26th that more than 60 news organizations have signed up to devote “one week of focused coverage” to the international…
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Judge Rejects Climate Suit to Establish ‘Right to Wilderness’
Oregon District Court Judge Michael McShane on July 31st rejected a petition by two nonprofit groups—Animal Legal Defense Fund and Seeding Sovereignty—and six individuals who allege the…
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Climate Change Gets 21 Minutes in Five-Hour Presidential Debate
CNN hosted the 2nd Democratic presidential candidates’ debate this week on two consecutive nights (July 30th and 31st). Twenty of the 24 Democratic candidates participated, with 10…
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Senate Highway Bill with First-Ever Climate Title Unanimously Clears Committee
On July 30th, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) passed S. 2302, America's Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019. The vote was 22-0.
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VIDEO: Green New Deal’s Bad Science
This week the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new study by CEI President Kent Lassman and Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner on the costs of the…