CEI has fought excessive regulation in the financial sector from laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. We have scored major bipartisan victories for deregulation. These include the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed by President Obama in 2012, that lifted or relaxed some of the biggest burdens preventing small and midsize firms from raising capital and going public; and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Trump in 2018, that lifted some of Dodd-Frank’s crushing burden on community banks and credit unions. We continue to fight to remove regulatory barriers that limit choices and increase costs for entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers.
Banking and Finance Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
Are stablecoins already delivering what CBDCs promise?
Many proposals for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital form of the US dollar issued by the Federal Reserve, have circulated…
Center Square
After rate hike, economists weigh tariffs’ role in inflation
CEI’s Senior Economist Ryan Young was quoted by Center Square in their analysis of tariffs impact in inflation. Ryan Young, senior economist…
News Release
Federal Reserve raises interest rates, eyes on future economic policy: CEI analysis
Today, the Federal Reserve has decided to raise interest rates by 25 basis points, the first increase in over three years. The decision…
Search Posts
Op-Eds
Lesson From France-Recession Ends Without US-Style Stimulus
The recession has ended in France, which avoided adopting a massive stimulus package like Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package. France’s conservative President…
News Release
Federal Officials Reach Bank Privacy Agreement with UBS
Statement of John Berlau, director of the Center for Investor and Entrepreneurs at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, on a reported deal between the United States…
CEI Planet
TARP Transparency: A Good Start, but Not Enough
Herbert Allison is President Obama’s newly-confirmed head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Stability. On Thursday, June 25, he promised to “emphasize transparency so…
Newsletter
EU Antitrust Rebuke, Record Deficit Numbers and the Costs of Global Warming Policy
European competition regulators get chastised for hiding evidence in a case against Intel. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the federal…
CEI Planet
Insurance Against Terrorism
After hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11, taxpayers ended up spending a lot of money to aid the injured, rebuild public infrastructure, improve…
CEI Planet
Insurance Against Terrorism
CEI Planet
Limited Government Role Seen in Tackling Catastrophe Risks
Q: What role should the federal government play in setting natural catastrophe policy? The federal government certainly has a role to play…
CEI Planet
Overhaul State’s Mitigation-Discount System
State Farm’s decision to reduce government-mandated mitigation discounts seems severe. But it’s unlikely the company would have made it — and dealt with the…
News Release
Think tank questions denial of State Farm mitigation discount rate filing request
The Florida Insurance Project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute today questioned state insurance regulators’ decision to deny State Farm’s request to reduce mandatory discounts for…
Newsletter
Microhoo Scrutiny, Terrorism Insurance and Cooling Global Temperatures
Microsoft and Yahoo face antitrust scrutiny for their recently announced 10-year search agreement. The White House proposes scaling back a federal…
News Release
CEI Announces Second Annual ‘Out of the Storm’ Conference on Insurance Reform
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets (RRM) announced today that they will be co-hosting a conference in New Orleans along with…
CEI Planet
Neal Reintroduces Offshore Reinsurance Tax Bill
CEI Planet
Health Reform Can’t Copy Auto Insurance
Republicans and Democrats have looked to auto insurance as a model for reforming an expensive health care system that leaves millions without coverage and…
Newsletter
Apple under Investigation, CEO Pay Limits and Hurricane Safety
The Federal Communications Commission investigates Apple and AT&T over the decision to spurn Google Voice on the iPhone. The House of Representatives passes a bill…
CEI Planet
Bermuda Insurers Hit Back at Controversial Neal Bill
CEI Planet
Changing Winds Aim at Insurance
Blog
Policy Translated: The Homeowners’ Defense Act
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmzVgg0tpmo 285 234]…
News Release
Bonus Pay Bill: CBO Predicts Huge Costs to Private Sector, Broad Swaths of Employees Affected
Bonus Pay Bill: CBO Predicts Huge Costs to Private Sector, Broad Swaths of Employees Affected Statement of John Berlau, Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs Washington,…
CEI Planet
US Reinsurance Tax Bill Branded “Anti Consumer”
CEI Planet
Pay Me Later
CEI Planet
Bill Closing Tax Loophole for ‘Offshores’ Introduced
News Release
Hurricanes, Dan Rather’s Media Plan and New Insurance Taxes
Global hurricane activity reaches a 30 year low, confounding predictions of more hurricanes caused by global warming. Retired CBS newsreader Dan…
CEI Planet
Beach Houses: Owned by the Rich, Paid for by Everyone
News Release
CEI Blasts Rep. Neal’s Reinsurance Tax Bill
A Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank, today blasted Rep. Richard Neal’s (D-MA) introduction of a bill to impose…
Blog
Obama Health-Care Plan Will Harm People With Insurance, and Raise Taxes, Obama Adviser Says
Obama’s health-care plan is drawing criticism from one of his own advisers, Harvard University’s Martin Feldstein. In today’s Washington Post, Feldstein warns that…
Blog
Dems’ Health Care Bill Looking Weaker by the Day
For the Democrats still supporting the health care overhaul, the blows just keep coming. As if the financial problems I described in a previous…
Blog
Health Insurance Reform: look at what does and doesn’t work already
“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and…
Newsletter
Cutting Back on Healthcare, Online Privacy and Front-Running on Wall Street
House Democrats debate how to cut healthcare costs as part of their effort to pass major new legislation. Online advertisers back voluntary industry guidelines for…
CEI Planet
Protection Is a Team Effort
Floridians, don't let the current lack of hurricane activity lull you into a false sense of security. As a low-lying peninsula jutting out into the…
Blog
Our Colleague Julie Called it “Subprime Healthcare”
I think that about sums it up.
CEI Planet
Auto Insurance Works – So Why Doesn’t Health Insurance
Those looking for solutions to America’s health insurance bills can see a lot to admire in the auto insurance market. Auto coverage purchasers throughout…
Blog
Obama Health-Care Plan Destroys Cheap Health-Care Options, Raises Taxes, Breaks Promises
In 2008, Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. But he is now breaking that promise by…
Letters
Coalition Letter on Optional Federal Chartering
Full Letter Available in Word As Congress moves towards a debate over sweeping reform of the nation’s financial regulations, we urge you to…
Newsletter
Labor Politics, Government Paternalism and Tobacco Profits
Labor unions push to establish “binding arbitration” in contract negotiations. The nomination of law professor Cass Sunstein to oversee new federal regulations moves forward. Cigarette…
Blog
Obama Rejects Reality as “Politics of the Moment,” Embraces Politics of Fear
Listening to President Barack Obama and other top Democrats on the subject of health care, one could be forgiven for thinking commercial medicine itself is…
Newsletter
Paulson’s Testimony, Ken Burns on National Parks and Obama’s Surgeon General Nominee
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testifies before the House Government Reform Committee on his handling of the banking crisis. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns announces his…
Blog
House Dems Would Ban New Private Health Insurance
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first…
CEI Planet
Beach Plan Fix Would Require Another Fix Later
Although thoughts of hurricane season conjure up images of devastated trailer parks, fearsome storm surges, and ruined roads, North Carolina has more to worry…
Study
Free Market Strategies for Insurance Reform
Two major proposals to regulate insurance federally have appeared. The first, the National Insurance Consumer Protection Act. The second proposal stems from the Obama administration.
News Release
Paulson Must Be Held Accountable for Alleged Bank of America Threats
Paulson Must Be Held Accountable for Alleged Bank of America Threats Statement by CEI John Berlau Washington, D.C., July 15,…
CEI Planet
Obama Administration = Waste, Corruption, Corporate Welfare
Rapidly-rising Medicare spending already threatens “to crush the federal budget,” and much Medicare spending is wasteful, yet the Obama Administration claims it can somehow…
Newsletter
Chemical Safety, Global Warming Balance Sheets and Hybrid Smugness
Canadian officials find that the presence of bisphenol A, a chemical used in plastic food containers, poses “no health or safety concerns.” The Securities and…
Blog
Will Climate Thuggery Capture the SEC?
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may require corporations to assess and disclose the impacts of global warming and climate change policy on their bottom…
Newsletter
Sotomayor in the Senate, The New GM and State Farm in Florida
Judge Sonia Sotomayor prepares for her confirmation hearings in the Senate. A slimmed-down General Motors emerges from bankruptcy. Florida’s insurance commissioner claims to have “a…
CEI Planet
Former National Security Official Champions Bill for National Catastrophe Fund
Blog
“It would be hard to devise a surer formula for economic catastrophe.”
It may not be in a debacle like California’s, but I still find it galling to see my home state of Florida go from being…
Newsletter
Safe Bottled Water, a Second Stimulus and Keeping Government out of Insurance
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) questions the safety of the U.S. bottled water industry. Officials consider putting together a second stimulus package to follow the $787…
News Release
CEI Questions FL Insurance Commissioner’s ‘gut feeling’ on State Farm
The Florida Office director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Insurance Project today questioned the basis for Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s “gut feeling” that State Farm will…
CEI Planet
Worst Idea of the Year
Later today [1:00 p.m. Thursday 7-9-9] former FEMA administrator James Lee Witt and former Coast Guard head James Loy –America’s two most trusted emergency…
News Release
CEI Questions ProtectingAmerica.org Insurance Study
Analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank, criticized protectingamerica.org’s continued advocacy for a federal insurance backstop.
Staff & Scholars
John Berlau
Senior Fellow and Director of Finance Policy
- Banking and Finance
- Deregulation
- Financial Regulation
Iain Murray
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow
- Banking and Finance
- Trade and International
Steve Swedberg
Finance and Monetary Policy Analyst
- Banking and Finance
- Deregulation
- Financial Regulation