The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the proper role for government is to provide consumers with accurate, unbiased guidance that informs consumer choice. But, whether it is the substances we prefer, how we entertain ourselves, what dietary habits we maintain, or how we pursue personal health, consumers ought to have the right to make decisions for themselves.
Consumer Freedom Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
Consumers benefit from access to Buy Now, Pay Later options
In a rapidly evolving retail landscape, with more and more commerce moving online, there has been a rise of financial technology (or fintech) tools. These…
Blog
Congressional lessons learned: Prioritize private risk capital investment
There is always a temptation for Congress to act during a lame duck session to show it is hard at work doing good for the…
News Release
GDP report for third quarter indicates strengthened economy: CEI analysis
The GDP report for the third quarter of 2024 shows 2.8 percent growth, indicating a rapidly growing and healthy economy. While there is still…
Search Posts
Newsletter
Video Gamers Win in Court, Free Speech on Campus and the Impact of Biofuels
The state of California is ordered to pay video game makers $280,000 in legal fees over an unconstitutional law that sought to restrict game sales.
Citation
Telling McDonald’s it can open franchises only in the white part of town
Blog
States Begin to Regulate Nano
So far, nanotech has been left blessingly unregulated by the feds. Nanotech has been responsible for the great advances in computer technology.
Blog
Frank bill mandates credit rating agencies to repeat subprime mistakes
Due to their failures in the subprime mess, it has long been expected that Congress would take up regulation of the credit rating agencies to…
Newsletter
Ethanol’s Sins, Menthol Cigarettes and Property Rights
USA Today details the troubling side effects of using corn-based ethanol as an auto fuel. Legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration authority over…
Newsletter
Fairness Doctrine, Wind Power and Flood Insurance
Lawmakers debate the return of the “Fairness Doctrine” for news broadcasts. Famed Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens launches a multimedia campaign to replace oil use…
Newsletter
Online Gambling, Fannie Mae Bailout and WTO
Congressman Barney Frank sponsors legislation to legalize online gambling. President Bush endorses the taxpayer bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. India raises…
Citation
The Federal Government’s Intrusion Into Gambler’s Lives
Study
The Federal Government Should Leave Gamblers Alone
Why the Market Can Best Discipline Online Gambling…
Op-Eds
Corporate Welfare for XM/Sirius Competitors?
Wayne Crews and Ryan Young argue that terrestrial radio's opposition shows that a merger between Sirus and XM will benefit consumers.
Citation
EU Delegation to Question US Officials over Online Gambling Stance
Citation
EU Challenging US Online Gambling Legislation
Newsletter
Banking Crisis, Globalization and Internet Poker
Federal officials charge that a letter from Sen. Chuck Schumer sparked the run on deposits that triggered the second-largest bank collapse in U.S. history this…
Newsletter
Bank Failure, Offshore Oil Drilling and Online Gambling
The multi-billion dollar failure of IndyMac bank in California fuels calls for greater government regulation of financial institutions. President Bush lifts the White House ban…
Op-Eds
The Risks of Gambling Regulation
When trade emissaries from the European Union arrive in Washington later this month to talk to officials in Congress, the Justice Department, and…
Blog
Free Trade Brings Hope and Prosperity, Transforms Lives
There’s a story in the Washington Post today about how freer trade lifted millions of people out of poverty in Colombia, especially in the…
Blog
Wireless Kills Birds, Birds Kill Wireless?
Ars editorializes today about bird deaths caused by wireless communication towers. Apparently, bird groups such as the National Audobon Society, Defenders of Wildlife,…
Newsletter
Free Trade, Satellite Radio and Lead Paint in Court
A free trade agreement with Colombia continues to be stalled in Congress. Democratic senators continue to hold up approval of the merger of XM and…
Citation
Reluctance in the senate to back housing bill finger printing provision
Letters
Letter to Congress on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act
Eli Lehrer and Michelle Minton join Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, to oppose new gaming regulation.
News Release
CEI Mourns the Passing of George Carlin
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute mourns the loss of one of America’s greatest comedic talents, George Carlin. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, remarked…
Op-Eds
Unfairness Doctrine
Cord Blomquist on government censorship of political speech and the possible revival of the "Fairness Doctrine"…
Newsletter
Energy Legislation, Interest Rates and Futurism
The Senate prepares for a vote to end debate on major global warming legislation. The value of the dollar climbs slightly after the Federal Reserve…
Citation
A Superintendent’s Guide to Student Free Speech in California Public Schools
Blog
Child Seizures Unjustified
In the National Review, Timothy Lynch explains how Texas’s Child Protective Services ignored state law and common sense in seizing 465 children from members of…
Blog
The Other Washington is a Mess Too
Mose Americans realize that Washington is dysfunctional and perverse. So is Washington, D.C. The city has long been unfriendly to business, encouraging enterprises to locate in…
Blog
The Farm Bill: Enriching the Prosperous
If the last seven years have proved anything on Capitol Hill, it is that there are no fiscal conservatives in Washington. The bipartisan desire to…
Blog
Farm Bill veto would be richly deserved
Right after House-Senate conferees announced that they had reached agreement on a new farm bill yesterday, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture said that…
Citation
Suing Over What Your Co-Workers Listen To
Citation
Too Fat to Fire?
Newsletter
Environmental Politics, Internet Gambling and Drug Imports
Regnery Publishing releases the new book The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About--Because They Helped Cause Them. An…
Blog
How Al Gore Fostered Famine, Food Riots, and Rising Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Ethanol subsidies have led to hunger and food riots across the world, by diverting critical farmland from food production to fuel production. While in…
Blog
Food Riots Spread in Haiti, and Across the World, Fueled by Ethanol Mandates
Food rioting has spread in Haiti, endangering the government of its “U.S.-backed president.” “A desperate appeal from the president Wednesday failed to restore order…
Poker Pages
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
Blog
FDA using consumer safety to blackmail Capitol Hill for more funds
FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach put on his best “Mom, Dad, I don’t get enough allowance! whine” at a conference in DC last week.
Poker News
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
Blog
Last Day to Vote For Freedom in Economist.com Debate
Today is the last day to vote for the free market and against overregulation in a debate I am participating at the web site of…
Blog
Farm bill excesses
With U.S. farm production and farmers’ incomes soaring, why is a bloated farm bill likely to sweep through the House-Senate conference this spring? The Wall…
News Release
Congress’s Online Gambling Ban: Burden Without Benefit, Says Study
Current laws about Internet gambling have had damaging unintended consequences far beyond their intended target.
Study
Time to Fold the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
A bad law that could threaten America’s banking system…
Blog
Some things are supposed to be private….
Anti-biotechnology activists managed to leverage sunshine laws in Europe to get the EU government to release research information that was supposed to be confidential.
Op-Eds
No Dice
Anybody who has spent time in Washington knows that Congress often passes bad laws. But even the most widely derided laws — think…
Poker News
5 Absurd Product Bans
Poker News
Dumb Product Bans
Poker News
Sexual Harassment: A Strange, Vague ‘Tort’
On Wednesday, I discussed how the courts can be downright hostile to employers in sexual harassment cases, playing a game of bait-and-switch regarding whether…
Poker News
Sexual Harassment Bait and Switch
In sexual harassment cases, many courts play a game of bait and switch with employers. When they want to hold the employer liable, they…
Poker News
Prejudice and Double Standards in Sexual Harassment Cases
Earlier, I discussed how judges in the New York area, such as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, enforce discriminatory double standards in sexual…
Study
The Five Dumbest Product Bans
This paper focuses on five clearly absurd product bans that seem to serve no social good.
Poker News
Double Standards at Duke—and in the Courts
Recently, Stuart Taylor wrote about sexual double standards at Duke University. Duke paid $3,500 to finance a performance by strippers and prostitutes…
Blog
Eco-Terrorism leading Britain to decrease transparency
Repeated sabotage attacks by eco-terrorists in Britain have ruined several years’ worth of field trials of plants bred with molecular plant breeding methods. Now the…
Products
CEI Planet: January – February 2008
View the new Montly Planet by downloading the PDF of the issue. Below you’ll find previews of the articles in this issue: Free Trade…
Blog
I can see restaurants doing BMI measures at the door
Mississippi State Representative Ted Mayhall (R-DeSoto) hopes to fuel a debate about obesity by proposing a bill that prohibits restaurants to serve obese people.
Op-Eds
Hillary’s (Video) Gamesmanship
Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" approach means the Village, i.e. the government, ordering parents how to raise their kids through government mandates and regulation.
Blog
Big Mickey is Watching
In today’s DC Examiner, columnist Melanie Scarborough discusses the implications of a disturbing exchange she witnessed recently. While shopping the other day, I was…
Blog
Tate Modern museum — where’s the “precautionary principle”?
Read an article about precaution and risk — in the Arts section of The New York Times today. Seems that the Tate…
Study
Politically Determined Entertainment Ratings and How to Avoid Them
Full Document Available in PDF When they…
Blog
Celebrate the Repeal of Prohibition, YouTube Style
Raise a glass to 21st Amendment!…
Blog
ENDA vs. Free Speech
Earlier, I discussed ENDA, a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would ban most employers from engaging in sexual orientation discrimination. While…
News Release
Smoking Prevention Bill May Backfire
Contact: Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, DC, October 2, 2007—As the House Committee on Energy and Commerce prepares to hold a hearing tomorrow…
Letters
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Full Document Available in PDFs Dear Representative: We are writing to express our concerns…
Blog
The chickens come home to roost . . .
The corn-ethanol boom is continuing to spike up costs for food producers. Tyson, the beef and poultry titan, announced yesterday that its costs were up…
Blog
Alarming Waste
Today’s Washington Post includes a story on bisphenol A, a chemical that has been used to make flexible, clear plastic products–including baby bottles–since the…
Blog
Jenkins in the WSJ on the subprime shambles
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.’s piece in the Wall Street Journal today (“Payback,” subscription required) is a thoughtful and cogent assessment of some aspects of…
Blog
No such thing as a victimless ban
UK Telegraph columnist A.N. Wilson weighs in on a little-noticed pernicious effect of nanny statism. What do the following have in common:…
Blog
Chesapeake Bay Foundation — more corn acreage, more pollution
Growing more corn for ethanol in the mid-Atlantic region will mean increased pollution in rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill: A Trojan Horse?
PR Watch has an interesting story on the cynical baptist-bootlegger alliance behind the bill to give the FDA oversight over the tobacco industry, which…
Blog
DDT Deniers Deny Science
DDT-deniers—those who would rather let people die that allow DDT use to fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes—have been critiquing our blog posts on the topic…
Blog
The Uncreative Indestructibility of Modern Farming
Over at the Mises Institute’s website, Dan McLaughlin highlights a little-discussed pernicious effect of U.S. farm policy: the short-circuiting of the market’s creative destruction.
Blog
DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
Blog
Drug lag — precaution or pipelines?
According to a CNN Money article, a report released yesterday shows that the FDA has been cracking down on new drug approvals. Pharmaceutical companies…
Blog
Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
Blog
Getting the Word Out
Good news: Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights the recent study on DDT benefits in repelling mosquitoes and battling resistance issues. This study was highlighted…
Blog
Bad Information = Dangerous Consequences
Anti-DDT activists might read this with glee: Misinformation about DDT risks is undermining its use in Kampala, Uganda. A Ugandan news website reports that…
Blog
New Offense: Walking While Ripped
Nanny says eat healthily, exercise, and grow up big and strong. The Nanny State says don’t look too well-developed or we’ll arrest you. Seriously. It…
Blog
How Dare You Help Out!
The BBC reports that an old woman has “has been told she must stop tending a public flower bed unless she agrees to wear…
Blog
Another case of plastiphobia?
Typical of Reuters' science articles, there's a scare element in an article today titled “Panel worried about baby bottle chemical.” The article was referring…
Blog
No Excuse for Resistance to DDT
Anti-DDT activists in the environmental movement often suggest we should stop using this chemical to save people from malaria and other diseases because mosquitoes will…
Blog
America’s Black Market in Raw Milk
Criminals continue to peddle their illegal wares in America, as heroic law enforcement officers seek to stamp out a dangerous black market. No, the product…
Blog
More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
Blog
Credit for Codex decision?
In your post commenting on the rejection by Codex of the use of the Precautionary Principle, I’d like to point out that giving the…
Blog
UN Group Rejects Precautionary Principle
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint UN Food and Agricultural Organization-World Health Organization food safety standard-setting body, has apparently agreed to exclude the…
Blog
A Bridge Collapse Too Far
A lot of theories are being floated for what exactly caused the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. The real answer, of course,…
Blog
Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
Blog
Hatefull to the Nose, Harmefull to the Braine, Dangerous to the Lungs
If you’re looking for early health warnings about tobacco, Richard, you can go a lot further. The title of this post was the judgment of…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
Blog
Goofy’s Coffin Nails
When it comes to the politics of tobacco regulation, one of the most important dates is January 11, 1964, when then-Surgeon General Luther L. Terry…
Blog
Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
Blog
Nanny State In Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion…
Blog
Drug Price Ceilings Overturned
An appeals court ruling today struck down Washington, D.C.’s price ceilings for prescription drugs. In Biotechnology Industry Organization v. District of Columbia, the Court…
Blog
Whole Foods Merger Analysis
I may be going out on a limb here, but I predict, on the basis of what happened in court yesterday, that the Whole Foods…
Blog
How much will the Farm Bill cost the average family?
WashingtonWatch today listed the cost of the farm bill (H.R. 2419) just passed by the House last Friday. It seems like the average American…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Tramples Free Speech, Advertisers Say
Advertisers are objecting to the bill that would subject the tobacco industry to FDA regulation, saying that its restrictions on tobacco advertising would violate…
Blog
Farm Bill becomes a partisan pork party
Today, the House passed the 2007 Farm Bill — with a vote of 231 – 191, along partisan lines. [Corrected] The fly in the…
Blog
FDA Regulation: Harmful to Smokers’ Health?
Congress is on the verge of passing a bill that would subject tobacco products to FDA regulation. The FDA regulation bill would make it…
Blog
Sugar amendment offered during Farm Bill debate
During debate on the House floor on the Farm Bill this morning, sugar was on the agenda in the form of an amendment…
Blog
Farm Bill debate starts by focusing on tax increases on businesses
House floor debate on the 2007 Farm Bill — H.R. 2419 — began at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, with a contentious beginning focusing on a…
Blog
“He Only Saved a Billion People”
Newsweek has a story on Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, whose advances in biotechnology saved a billion people from starvation in…
Blog
Update on 2007 Farm Bill — Administration issues critique — and warning
On the eve of House consideration of the 2007 Farm Bill, the Bush Administration has just sent a statement from the Office of Management…
Blog
Farm bill scheduled for House tomorrow — Bush will veto, says Ag Secretary
Today Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns said that the President may veto the 2007 Farm Bill, scheduled for full House consideration tomorrow, because it…
