Stocks Rise, Fossil Felonies and Reforming Online Gambling

Stock values make their biggest one-day gains since last November.

Congress considers a land management bill that could punish paleontologists and rock collectors with arrest for disturbing fossils on public land.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) promises to move forward on legislation to reform current laws on online gambling.

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1. ECONOMY 

Stock values make their biggest one-day gains since last November.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on why we need regulatory reforms to sustain a growing stock market:

“Stock markets, which earlier fell after the Administration’s $8 trillion in new deficit spending spooked investors, [rose yesterday] on speculation that costly mark-to-market accounting rules will be suspended. But the Treasury Department says that the rules, which have been described as some of the ‘most destructive policies of the Bush Administration,’ will merely be tweaked. If such rules had been in effect in the 1980s, [according to investor and publisher Steve Forbes] ‘every major commercial bank would have collapsed.’” 

 

2. LEGAL

Congress considers a land management bill that could punish paleontologists and rock collectors with arrest for disturbing fossils on public land.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on the misplaced priorities of the bill: 

“At a time when the federal government should be busy catching and jailing the Madoffs, Stanfords, and other alleged fraudsters who swindled Americans out of billions, it seems a particular waste of time to hunt down nature enthusiasts who may have inadvertently disturbed a ‘paleontological resource.’ And it would indeed be a tragedy if a rock hunter’s bike or car were ‘nationalized’ before the first bad bank was even laid a finger on.” 

 

3. BUSINESS

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) promises to move forward on legislation to reform current laws on online gambling.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Michelle Minton on why today’s gambling environment isn’t like the Wild West

“Online gambling faces challenges common to any growing industry. Gambling online does, in many cases, imply unique threats and risks that do not apply in the ‘real’ world—including computer viruses and adware. But online gambling is not illegal, does not take place in a lawless ‘Wild West’ setting, and does not provide a particularly fertile ground for cheating. Those who gamble online need to be careful just as those who gamble in the real world need to be. The market and rating agencies do an increasingly effective job of ensuring consumer safety. Those who want to make online gambling safer will do best to review the ways in which government interference in economic activity creates openings for unethical operators, rather than attempt to squash all activity.” 

 

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