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
Illiberalism: The bipartisan tradition
After experiencing the horrors of World War I and fearing a second World War could be imminent, Ludwig von Mises wrote Liberalism: The Classical…
Blog
The Senate housing bill’s road to socialism
In the last week of February, I expressed hope that members of Congress would “embrace free-market proposals to advance opportunities in the housing sector”…
Blog
No free lunch: Price controls won’t make groceries more affordable
When Americans go to the grocery store, they expect to find food and drinks. Lately, many are encountering something else: sticker shock. According to…
Search Posts
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…
