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
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CFPB breaks its stranglehold over adjudications
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) just announced that it will revise its adjudication rules to ensure greater fairness. Specifically, the CFPB is rescinding…
Blog
Katie Porter’s exchange with CFPB’s Kraninger revisited amid new revelations
A recently surfaced clip of former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) has sparked a firestorm online. In a newly revealed 2021 video revealed published by…
Blog
The week in regulations: Poultry improvement and painful scars
The federal government shut down on Wednesday. Thursday’s Federal Register had 60 final regulations; normal is about 10. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew in hundreds…
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Blog
Credit Card Price Controls Harm Consumers
The Wall Street Journal editorial got it exactly right: The Federal Reserve cut rates to historic lows Tuesday, but today it…
Blog
The Value of a Dollar
Yesterday the dollar reach a 13-year low against the Euro as the Federal Reserve continues to pump new money into the system. All of this…
Blog
Bailouts Unconstitutional Failures
Jacob Sullum’s recent column argues that Bush’s auto bailout plan is an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers. We earlier argued that it was…
Blog
Paulson’s Bailout Was a Scam
National Review editor Rich Lowry, who mistakenly supported the financial system bailout because he trusted the Bush Administration, now realizes that he was deceived by…
Blog
No Regrets Greenery for Kids
In recent days I’ve been heavily exposed to commercials featuring the Nickelodeon network’s teen stars advocating The Big Green Help, including, Lord help us,…
Blog
Fed Cuts Rates, Punishing Thrift, and Impoverishing Savers
The Federal Reserve has just cut the federal funds rate for loans to banks to an unprecedentedly low rate — ranging from 0.0% to…
Blog
The Cloverfield Monster of the Internet
Earlier posts today dealt with the hoo-ha over Net Neutrality. By coincidence, an anonymous colleague put the following old 1996 quote by Sen. James Exon…
Blog
Why Not a Wal-Mart Bank?
Seems like every business these days is becoming what’s called a “bank holding company” — seeking the shelter of the federal government’s deposit insurance and…
Blog
Jay Leno Riffs on the Bailout
A new viral email, claiming to be jokes written by Mr. Leno, adds a bit of humor to the financial crisis. As business and government…
Blog
Federally Sanctioned Propaganda Machine
Apple's 1984 "Big Brother" ad An article over at Ad Age brings up an angle on the whole…
Blog
Auto Bailout Smoke and Mirrors
Mickey Kaus, a moderate Democrat, explains how the proposed auto bailout contains little leverage for the proposed “auto czar” to really cut the excessive…
Blog
Auto Bailout – Destroying Detroit by ‘saving’ it
In a famous quotation from his 1986 address to the annual White House Conference on Small Business, President Ronald Reagan quipped that “government’s view…
Blog
Unbelievable Gall from the New York Times
As economists and the Wall Street Journal have noted, the Community Reinvestment Act was an important ingredient of the financial crisis, by pressuring…
Blog
Censorship and Bailouts for the Rich
George Will has an interesting column on how the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that many liberal lawmakers want to reimpose in order to shut down…
Newsletter
Bottled Water for the Homeless, Challenging NAFTA and Green-on-Green Violence
North Carolina officials pass out winter aid kits to the homeless. Barack Obama’s presumptive pick for trade representative suggests that the U.S. should renegotiate the…
Blog
Feds to Flush Billions More Down the Toilet, Destroying Jobs
The Treasury Department wants the federal government to effectively buy up all mortgage loans in America, by selling treasury bonds to buy up mortgage-backed…
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Berlau on Air America today — debating deregulation on Thom Hartmann
Today at noon Eastern time, I will enter the lion's den. I will be live in the New York City studios of liberal network Air…
Blog
Wealth-Creating Alternatives to Pelosi’s Destructive Infrastructure “Stimulus”
Well, who can possibly be surprised by the revelation that “The federal government's economic stimulus package will include investment in broadband Internet infrastructure and…
Blog
This week’s Least Objectionable Bureaucrat
My occasional “Least Objectionable Legislator Award” (no prize) takes a detour today and goes to a bureaucrat instead. So the LOL Award (pun intended, I…
Blog
Stimulus as if Capitalism Mattered
Those dispensing the "Bailout to Nowhere" proceeds seemingly answer to no one (here's one article behaving as if this were unexpected and surprising). Today…
Newsletter
Online Poker, Auto Workers and Public Works Programs
60 Minutes reports on fraud in the world of online poker. The president of the United Auto Workers union makes a public plea for a…
Blog
Banks Sued No Matter What They Do
Banks get sued for discrimination no matter what they do. If they don’t make enough loans in low-income, predominantly minority neighborhoods, they get accused of “redlining,”…
Blog
Stimulus Follies
President-elect Obama wants a massive stimulus package of $700 billion or more. But previous attempts to artificially stimulate the economy have generally been failures. …
News Release
Internet Poker Cheating Is Government’s Fault, CEI Says
A Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow says that the recent 60 Minutes reports about online poker cheating scandals show the foolishness of efforts to…
Blog
Holiday foods and natural carcinogens
I always enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday Dinner Menu from the American Council on Science and Health. It lists the natural carcinogens…
Blog
Will Obama go after farm bill pork?
Cutting some of the pork in the 2008 farm bill may be on President-elect Obama's plate. In his press conference November 25 to…
Blog
America the Ungovernable
With respect to the ongoing series of bailouts, my colleague Iain Murray pointed out that some sensible British commentators note that one of the ways…
Blog
Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee: School Board Virtually Concedes Vast New Liability
There's an interesting case pending in the Supreme Court, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, that could make Title IX irrelevant in many cases, by creating…
Citation
the libertarian movement
Blog
Student Eye Opener
Cheers to Dewey Crowley for his eye-opening article in the Bowdoin College paper The Bowdoin Orient. His piece on bottled water should be…
Blog
Too Bad Daschle Isn’t at SEC — Backed Sarbanes-Oxley Relief
President-Elect Barack Obama just nominated former Senate Democratic Leader Tom to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. Much is being written about Daschle…
Blog
Daschle: Good, Wrong, and Terrible
President-elect Obama has named Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services. By some measures the largest department in the government,…
Newsletter
Ethanol Subsidies, Sarbanes-Oxley and Bottled Water
A broad-based coalition calls on Congress to phase out subsidies for ethanol production. A federal Appeals Court rules on a Constitutional challenge to the Sarbanes-Oxley…
Newsletter
Green Week on NBC, Hillary at State and Taxing Casinos
NBC Universal and corporate parent General Electric launch seven days of environmentally-themed programming with “Green Week.” Political observers predict that President-elect Obama will nominate Sen.
Blog
From Each According to his Profitability…
That seems to be the motto of Illinois, at least of those legislators who decided to tax casinos in order to prop up…
Blog
Pure Hype about Bottled Water
The company producing Pur Filters is touting the fact that its filters can remove trace pharmaceuticals and even some (but they don’t guarantee it…
Blog
To Blame Laissez-Faire, Anti-Market Media Must Do Better
Like many of us at CEI, it looks like my former boss Phil Gramm isn't interested in helping anybody pretend that today's financial crisis was…
Blog
Championing civil liberties — mostly
I’ve been a closet admirer of Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) since he singlehandedly opposed the Patriot Act in the Senate. According to…
Blog
Ugly Vegetables and Fruit Again to be Sold in Europe!
Amazing. The European Union actually responded to criticism. About one-fifth of European produce has to be dumped because it doesn’t mean minimum EU standards, which…
Blog
Lame Duck Flies in the Face of Americans’ Rights
The Bush administration is arguable one of the most wildly unprincipled in the history of the white house. They have acquiesced to or…
News Release
CEI Blasts New Banking, Internet Gambling Regulations
Washington, D.C., November 13, 2008—In its final weeks, the Bush administration is trying to rush through ill-considered regulations aimed at preventing Internet gambling. Two Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
To President-Elect Obamaâ€â€Freeze Gov’t Regulations this Winter
Yesterday I called for a major “Deregulatory Stimulus.” Alongside---with financial, health care, energy efficiency, “green job” and other mandates likely in an Obama Administration---the…
Blog
EU Lifts “Ugly” Fruit and Vegetable Ban
The European Union has rescinded its ban on some “ugly” fruits and vegetables. AP reports: The European Union bid adieu Wednesday to rules that…
Blog
Are liberal groups’ lobbyists banned from transition team?
On Tuesday, John Podesta, the head of President-elect Obama's transition team, said that lobbyists will be banned from working on the transition team…
Blog
Reject political stimulus, embrace “Deregulatory Stimulus.” And do it FAST.
Facing an economic downturn and an election, politicians of both parties sought to stimulate consumer demand—and some business investment—through political action. They promised that if…
Blog
Defending the free market — “Yes, we can!”
Matt Welch’s Reason piece “Back to the Barricades —Free Markets are Under Attack Again” is a good read, if not…
Tech Policy Central
CEI Blasts New Banking, Internet Gambling Regulations
Blog
Bailouts Mushroom, Impoverishing Taxpayers
The federal government is expanding its bailout of AIG to $150 billion, well above its originally-predicted cost, and planning to bail out…
Blog
An Agenda for the Monday a.m. Obama and Bush Meeting
Since the President and President-elect start spending quality Oval Office time together today, and since the incoming admistration's advisors can't settle on either pushing…
Blog
Banana Entrepreneurs Should Follow the Cocoa Initiative
Last Wednesday, The New York Times ran an appealing story on the rise of an Ecuadorian Quichua community from…
