The Open Market Blog

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/20/2007

CEI’s Angela Logomasini and Ryan Radia focus on the bottled water issue in California country. Their op-ed in the Modesto Bee yesterday took on…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/16/2007

This morning, the Senate voted on closing off debate on the 2007 Farm Bill. The cloture vote was 55-42 in favor of the measure;…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/14/2007

Intriguing book review today in the Wall Street Journal by William Easterly. He discusses William Duggan‘s new book, Strategic Intuition, which…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/14/2007

Today as the Senate is considering its version of the 2007 Farm Bill, the Wall Street Journal editorialized about proposals for massive subsidy…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/08/2007

This Bloomberg article notes that banks and other lenders who pushed for reform of the consumer bankruptcy system are now stuck with some unintended…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/08/2007

Today the House of Representatives voted 285-132 to approve the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement. The Senate now has to consider legislation implementing the agreement.

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/08/2007

I’d like to second Hans’s recommendation to read Manhunt — and I feel a more personal connection: The hunt for John Wilkes Booth…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/07/2007

French President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed a joint session of Congress this morning and devoted most of his remarks to the close…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/07/2007

“Pass the Peruvian F.T.A,” so reads a New York Times editorial today on the same day the House is scheduled to vote on the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/06/2007

In a tele-news conference yesterday on the Senate farm bill, the acting U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary, Chuck Conner, said that he would…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/05/2007

Terrific front-page article on the influence of the sugar lobby in the Washington Post on Saturday by Dan Morgan recounting how the sugar industry’s…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/05/2007

Eli’s post about historic preservation and his mention of D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park has a lesson for preservationists who promote government as the savior…

• By: Fran Smith
• 11/01/2007

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday cleared the way for a full House vote next week on the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement, H.R. 3688.

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/30/2007

On the eve of All Hallow’s Eve, the Boston Globe‘s list of the “Top 50 scariest movies of all time” is worth a…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/30/2007

Eli–Re your post on the Robosaurus, I like these better. The one above weighs about 104,000 lbs. and the one below…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/26/2007

Okay, here’s a government action I can agree with: Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff ordered 16 dairies in Pennsylvania to correct their milk…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/25/2007

“Time to ditch Kyoto” says a commentary in Nature magazine’s October 25 issue. The article, written by Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, points…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/25/2007

Cato’s Center for Trade Policy Studies has just released a study by Dan Griswold showing that increased trade is not responsible for a lower…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/24/2007

The Wall Street Journal today carries an opinion piece by Stephen J. Rose (subscription required), a labor economist with the Progressive Policy Institute, titled…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/23/2007

Don Boudreaux over at CafeHayek is outraged at an off-the-wall, gratuitous attack on Norman Borlaug in Alexander Cockburn’s latest diatribe appearing in the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/10/2007

Eli’s post on D.C. taxicab fare proposals comes out strongly for the zone system over metered cabs. As a person who used to take…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/09/2007

The Progressive Policy Institute recently posted a new paper, “The Truth About Middle Class Jobs” by Stephen J. Rose. Rose, a prominent labor…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/04/2007

Another blow to proponents of more open trade. The Wall Street Journal reported today that a poll of Republican primary voters showed that almost…

• By: Fran Smith
• 10/03/2007

George Mason economics professor Tyler Cowen has a searing review in the New York Sun today on Naomi Klein’s new screed, The Shock Doctrine.

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/26/2007

A startling Reuters article today was titled “Gorbachev warns Russians against rise of Stalinism.” As reported, the former Soviet president made his…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/26/2007

A thought-provoking opinion piece in the Financial Times today by Michael Schrage, an MIT researcher –“Science must be more political.” That title is a…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/25/2007

Check out Bureaucrash’s latest video on drug lag at the FDA — with real people affected by those delays. Just released on Friday,…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/25/2007

Finally, some Democrats have come out strongly in favor of the pending Latin American trade agreements. Though don’t give them too much credit for…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/21/2007

You have to see this video to believe it — it’s a YouTube promo for Naomi “No logo” Klein’s new book,…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/21/2007

Cécile Philippe of L’Institut économique Molinari in Brussels has a new article — “Sommes-nous sur la bonne voie pour répondre aux défis environnementaux?”—or…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/20/2007

Both Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson cautioned today that steps to raise conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/20/2007

Eli’s post on internet co-ops referring to Wayne’s post about broadband infrastructure got my mind whirring about other examples of cooperatives — housing…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/19/2007

A New York Times editorial today (free access began today) points out some of the unintended consequences of corn ethanol subsidies and restrictive tariffs…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/18/2007

Surprise, surprise. Farmers can do better without federal government subsidies, price supports, quota systems, and other Depression-era programs that constrain competition and expansion. Today, the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/17/2007

It’s official — buying carbon credits to offset CO2 emissions is like doing penance for sins, according to a high-level Vatican official. An article in…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/12/2007

Good news from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today. Life expectancy in the U.S. is at an all time high…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/11/2007

Today John Tierney — while visiting Lower Manhattan — discusses global warming with Bjorn Lomborg in his science column in The New York Times.

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/11/2007

Subsidies for biofuels are leading to food price inflation and will cause environmental damage, so says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/06/2007

As an opera lover, I have to take note of the death of Luciano Pavarotti today at the age of 71. One of the leading…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/05/2007

Yesterday NPR’s All Things Considered took up the 2007 Farm Bill again and focused on the clout that sugar producers enjoy in both the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/05/2007

With free trade under attack by just about every POTUS hopeful, it’s encouraging to note that most economists are still stalwart in their defense of…

• By: Fran Smith
• 08/31/2007

This morning both Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President George W. Bush addressed the subprime lending problems and what the government would and would…

• By: Fran Smith
• 08/30/2007

Russell Roberts at CafeHayek posted excerpts from Freeman Dyson’s article “Heretical thoughts about science and society.” Dyson, professor of physics at Princeton’s Institute…

• By: Fran Smith
• 08/29/2007

As a New Orleans native — born and raised there — I've been reading the coverage of Hurricane Katrina's second anniversary today. Next…

• By: Fran Smith
• 08/29/2007

The Globe and Mail today (Toronto, Canada) looks at the U.S. presidential candidates and their views on trade as they talked about those issues…

• By: Fran Smith
• 08/28/2007

Bob Novak in his column yesterday had an interesting take on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and Democratic opposition to this trade pact. Novak…