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Freedom Fighter
The war to advance economic liberty will last forever. The effort is frustrating and often discouraging. Many freedom fighters burn out, retire from the field,…
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BP’s mixed messages on core ‘old world’ activities
Sybil Ackerman (“BP is deserving of censure, but not a vendetta”, September 1) raises interesting points but fails to assign responsibility for BP's problems…
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Congress’ Silk Purse
During the Capitol Hill budget debates, many spectators must have found the use of the term “earmarking” somewhat strange. What does it have…
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Reform the Reformers
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> On the Saturday Show (Jan. 21), NPR commentator John Ydstie, in a…
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The Ideas Marketplace — Sans Market?
WASHINGTON—The Jack Abramoff scandal has many individual players, but it’s also added fuel to an older and broader theme—the quest to purge politics of money.
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Corporate Social Concerns: Are They Good Citizenship, Or a Rip-Off for Investors?
Fred Smith debates CSR in The Wall Street Journal…
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Jared Diamond and the Terrible Too’s
Full article available in pdf format Fred Smith's review essay of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed in…
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Slicing Telecom the Right Way: Making a Real Market is the Best Cure for Monopoly
Mergers involving SBC and Verizon and a recent Supreme Court decision exempting cable-modem companies from open-access regulation have reignited fears of market domination…
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Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait. Only non-survivors…
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The Internet as Medical Adviser?
While the future of health care is heatedly debated in this presidential election year, something less obvious, but possibly much more important, is occurring behind…
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Eco-Fascism Going Global
Full text available as pdf<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> We can say this for environmental…
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Reformers Are too Willing to Turn a Blind Eye to Liberal Fixes for our Economic Problems
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Sirs, Your edition of July 6 features two distinct columns that demonstrate…
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Reformers are too Willing to Turn a Blind Eye to Liberal Fixes for our Economic Problems
Sirs, Your edition of July 6 features two distinct columns that demonstrate a persistent neglect of economic liberalisation as a way of resolving societal…
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Guess Your Liability
In these days of corporate scandal, who can argue against full disclosure on financial statements? But now comes one cockeyed movement that pushes the concept…
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Split Decision at the SEC
Nobel Prize economist Ronald Coase long ago warned of a political risk—that of wishing to be an “economic statesman,” which he defined as a person…
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More Regulations Do Not Inspire More Trust (Letter to the Editor)
It is not surprising for regulators to seize upon business failures to argue for more regulation, touting regulations alleged benefits while minimizing its downside. But…
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The FDA Poses Threat to Our Health, Liberty
An unusual and powerful coalition of special interests is lobbying Congress for a new tobacco deal: Put the Food and DrugAdministration in charge of…
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The Progressive Era’s Derailment of Classical-Liberal Evolution
It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals…
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Corporate PR Must Reach People as Consumers and Citizens
PR pros have long sought to link their efforts to clients’ return on investment. The planned campaign for the Aluminum Association, detailed in this magazine…
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Rescuing Free Trade From the Bureaucrats & Special Interests
Full article available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> In the aftermath of the…
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A Bright Idea: Deregulate
The massive blackout that shut off lights along the East coast, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Midwest and Canada need not…
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Developing World’s Moral Voice Absent in Bilateral Agreements (Letter to the Editor)
Sir, Daniel Griswold (“Bilateral deals are no threat to global trade”, July 27) raised several valid points in the defence of bilateral trade agreements. However,…
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Protecting the Environment (Letter to the Editor)
SIR – Your article about the resignation of Christine Todd Whitman as head of America’s Environmental Protection Agency suggests that the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s opposition…
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Avoid More Mandates
As more and more Americans become investors, paternalistic regulators are demanding greater disclosure by mutual funds to protect consumers from excessive brokerage commissions…
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Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post
Railroad deregulation provides a model for liberalizing all network industries. Network industries such as railroads, electricity and telecommunication have two elements: the flows (trains,…
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Getting The Rails Back On Track
As the recent crash of an Amtrak passenger train in Maryland illustrates, our nation's railroad tracks are in dire need of maintenance or replacement.
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Dream The Impossible Scheme
The Bush administration came out of the box on the energy issue with a reasonably positive mix of supply-side strategies – they are even willing…
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Can Science Make Us More Secure?
Fred L. Smith, Jr. President, Competitive Enterprise Institute The search for a safe society is dangerous as hell. One of the most…
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Why We Are United
As the patriotic tunes of July 4 reminded us, America is a highly diverse nation. We’re black, brown, white, red, and yellow; Catholic,…
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False Representation
In her book Whose Trade Organization, Lori Wallach argues that corporate interests have for too long dominated the World Trade Organization and that…
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Andersen Verdict Disappoints: Moves To Criminalize Accounting Mistakes Are Counterproductive
Given the media frenzy over Enron, no one should be surprised that Arthur Andersen, its accountant, was found guilty. The formal charge was…
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Verdict Disappoints
Given the media frenzy over Enron, no one should be surprised that Arthur Andersen, its accountant, was found gutty. The formal charge was obstruction of…
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The Hot Air from the Bush Administration
Well, Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto Global Warming protocol. It’s too bad he couldn’t leave well enough alone. While continuing to insist that…
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Secretary Gale Norton: Roosevelt Republican?
Gale Norton, an individual who was once libertarian and who has long espoused a principled view of private property and the market, now…
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Worrying About Frankenstein’s Monster
A specter is haunting Europe—called the “precautionary principle”. As generally defined, the precautionary principle states that a product or technology can be banned even if…
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Electricity Restructuring Is No License For Central Planning
Economists sometimes gets confused—specially when the real world doesn't fit into their…
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Where Were The Inside Traders When We Really Needed Them?
Contrary to what you hear from just about every politician and every pundit, the Enron collapse suggests that less regulation might make future…
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George “Smoot Hawley” Bush
The Bush administration’s decision to abandon its free trade position to protect the domestic steel industry is distressful. Even Clinton didn’t give in…
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A Man, A Plan, A Boondoggle
The Bush administration is not his father’s Oldsmobile—I mean administration—but it isn’t Ronald Reagan’s either. Bush II is amenable to reducing government, but…
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New Laws are Unnecessary
Politicians of all stripes are rushing into the Enron fray, eager to use this event as the pretext for enacting new regulations and laws against…
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New Laws Are Unnecessary
Politicians of all stripes are rushing into the Enron fray, eager to use this event as the pretext for enacting new regulations and…
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You Bastards: You Killed Bambi!
After recently watching Bambi, I worry that I may never again have an intelligent thought about man and nature. First we killed Bambi’s…
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Half a Cheer for the U.N.
Just when you thought you could count on a group to be consistent – they do something reasonable. The United Nations has rarely been a…
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It’s Magic!
The Left has a strange view of technology. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they fear it, and other times they view it as…
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Privatizing National Parks
Wonders never cease. China, once the poster child for socialist nonsense (remember the backyard steel furnaces?), seems determined to experiment with a wide…
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How the IMF Could Become a Real S&P for International Debt
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Two key members of Congress, House Majority Whip Tom Delay and House…
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When Property Rights Lead to Socialism
Economists have long been ecstatic about the growing enthusiasm of the greenies for the market. At last, economists chortle, our expertise will play a…
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CO2 Controls Are a Bad Idea: Voluntary or Not
Smith and Crandall Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal The Bush administration courageously rejected the Kyoto Protocol but is now considering “voluntary” carbon-dioxide suppression…
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Warming to Bush: The Political Complexities of Suppressing Global Energy Use
Those concerned that the Bush administration might have miscued on Kyoto will be reassured by a careful reading of the new boo Smith…
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Sustainable Development? How About Sustainable Growth?
The economic news out of Europe is bad — again. The euro is trending lower. German business confidence is down. Once-optimistic growth forecasts are being…