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The Volcker Winter Storm — Bad Rule, Worse Implementation
On a snowy day in Washington, several federal agencies packed some mean regulatory snowballs that will most likely overshoot their supposed destination of Wall Street…
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Government “Study” on Internet Tax Hides Harmful Small Business Effects
Under presidents of both parties, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has produced quality independent studies on the harmful tax and regulatory burden on…
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Twitter, the JOBS Act, and the Return to IPO Normalcy
The headline read that the company's initial public offering price is "high," and "so is its valuation." The accompanying story explained that the latest tech…
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Mel Watt Fails Taxpayer, Privacy, and Transparency Tests
Former Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., failed his procedural confirmation vote today to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the government housing entities Fannie…
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Don’t Let FTC Shut Down Legit Credit Repair Services
Next to the infamous Healthcare.gov, the website that featured the most bugs of the last month was FTC.gov, the site of the Federal Trade Commission. During…
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Shut Down Fannie and Freddie Permanently
Cross-posted from Newsbusters.org “U.S. Government Shutdown Threatening Housing Recovery,” screams the Oct. 2 headline of a shutdown scare screed in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Wade…
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Twitter IPO a Vindication of Bipartisan JOBS Act
Almost two years ago, I wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled, "Making It Legal to Tweet for Investors." In the op-ed, I described bipartisan bills…
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Mississippi Should Tell CFPB to “Stop Spying on Me”
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is coming to Mississippi Wednesday and Thursday with a public forum on "access to information." A vital question for Mississippians to…
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Paul and Udall Push Bipartisan Credit Union Business Lending Regulatory Reform
Today, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) is launching its "Don't Tax Tuesday" in which credit unions and their supporters tweet members of Congress…
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Judge Leon’s Lawless Durbin Amendment Debit Card Decision
Since Judge Richard Leon issued his shocking decision on July 31 that called for even more draconian price controls under Dodd-Frank's Durbin Amendment, some legal commentators…
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Not With Banks, Not With Retailers, But With Freedom
In explaining my policy positions, I often find myself pointing out I am neither pro-business nor pro-bank, but pro-market. My Competitive Enterprise Institute colleagues and I…
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Court Wrong to Make Dodd-Frank Durbin Price Controls More Draconian
Today, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the Federal Reserve's implementation of the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, which sets price controls on…
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On Dodd-Frank’s 3rd Anniversary, “North Star” is Further Out of Reach
Over the weekend, President Obama hailed the third anniversary of the enactment of the Dodd-Frank “financial reform.” In his weekly radio address, the president…
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SEC Finally Permits Free Speech for Hedge Funds, VCs, and Entrepreneurs
Today is finally the day that the Securities and Exchange Commission -- one year and three months after it was instructed to do so by…
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More Recognition that Dodd-Frank Harms Main Street Banks, Farmers, and Airline Passengers
In two high-profile forums last week, Dodd-Frank, the financial "reform" law sold as targeting Wall Street, was shown to have a devastating effect on Main…
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Udall-Paul Legislation Spreads Freedom for Credit Unions and Entrepreneurs
By definition, if a bill is sponsored by Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., or any similarly odd ideological couples in the House, it…
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How Online “Marketplace Fairness Act” Could Tax Your 401(k)
Today, the Senate likely will pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would force online retailers to collect sales taxes for states in which purchasers reside. Most have heard how this…
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Housing Nominee Watt Flunks Privacy And Transparency Tests
Two prerequisites for any nominee for government posts is dedication to transparency in government and a respect for the privacy of citizens. Before we get…
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Did Hensarling Force Obama’s Hand On “Recess” Appointments?
They called it a "stunt" early last week when House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) refused to allow Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)…
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Dodd-Frank’s Burden On Credit Unions Highlighted At Hearing
At a recent speech before a convention of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), new Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made the pitch that the Dodd-Frank…
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JOBS Act — What’s Been Implemented — Is Working; Now Implement The Rest!
CEI Research Associate Evan Woodham contributed to this post. Another round of disappointing jobs numbers released last Friday shows more than ever that massive…
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Bipartisan Dodd-Frank Derivatives Deregulation Advances In House — And Main Street Cheers
This afternoon, members of the House Agriculture Committee with strikingly different views on many issues came together to provide much need regulatory relief from the…
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What Cyprus (Initially) Got Right — Remembering The 2008 WaMu Capital “Run”
There's no shortage of criticism of the Cyprus "bail-in" -- the one-time tax the government had proposed levying on insured and uninsured depositors to rescue…
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Dallas Fed’s Fisher And CPAC’s Fishy Too-Big-To-Fail Event
If the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) organizers wanted a speaker or panel on the causes of the financial crisis and what to do about…
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Sequester Show May Not Have Jumped The Shark, But Its Format Has Changed
Are you watching the Sequester Show? In today's Wall Street Jorunal, my friend Kim Strassel says the sequester drama has "jumped the shark," a phrase used when…
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The Real Birthday Of America’s First Entrepreneur
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Payback? Government Targets S&P And Egan-Jones, Not Moody’s Or Fitch
Why not Moody's? Why not Fitch? Of all the questions raised about the U.S. government's strange case against Standard & Poor's—a lawsuit that actually asserts that…
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The Coming Regulatory Recession?
Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce reported the stunning news the U.S. economy actually contracted by 0.1 percent…
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SEC’s White May Be All Right, But Cordray’s CFPB Still A Constitutional Catastrophe
Today, President Obama will send to the Senate two nominations for two key financial regulatory posts. Noting that both of the nominees subject to Senate…
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Qualified Mortgage Rule Is One Of Many Dodd-Frank Boots To Drop
The first thing that should be said about today's "qualified mortgage" rule is that it is just one of many new regulations the Consumer Financial…