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The SEC’s new chief-to-be
President-elect Barack Obama‘s choice of Mary Schapiro to head the embattled Securities…
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Time to Send the Bushies Home
There’s nothing much to look forward to with the incoming administration. But I certainly won’t miss the current administration. It’s hard to…
American Spectator
The Myth of Buying Local
Buying local has always been a popular sentiment, but the movement has picked up steam in recent years. Especially this holiday season, consumers are being…
Op-Eds
Clean Waste
In choosing Nobelist and alternative energy enthusiast Steve Chu as his nominee to head the Department of Energy (DOE), President-elect Barack Obama is saying…
Op-Eds
Geithner is spelled P-a-u-l-s-o-n
President-Elect Barack Obama has received surprising praise from some conservatives for his economic team. After running a successful populist campaign against Wall Street…
Op-Eds
Time to shore up the Beach Plan
Insurance Commissioner-elect Wayne Goodwin has called North Carolina’s Beach Plan a “ticking time bomb.” He’s right. The plan, intended to provide “last…
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Power to the People
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Op-Eds
It’s All a Matter of Perspective
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Op-Eds
Obama’s promises on climate change clash with reality
Sir, Christopher Booker is correct when he talks about global warming policy as an economic suicide note. Yale economist William Nordhaus recently…
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Green Jobs Program Won’t Work in New Jersey, or Anywhere Else
Last month, Gov. Jon S. Corzine became the latest politician to drink the "green jobs" Kool-Aid when he unveiled an "energy master plan," that…
Op-Eds
Which Way Is Wise?
If there is one phrase to describe the events in the subprime meltdown, it is “collective stupidity.” Looking back on the poor underwriting…
American Spectator
What is Insurance?
Full Document Available in PDF Insurance is a type of financial product that serves to pool, manage and mitigate against unexpected…
Op-Eds
Obama’s Clinton Problem
Republicans had many things going against them this election, but the financial market implosion in September proved to be the final blow that…
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Natural Poet: Environmental lyrics are more appealing than political verse
Red Bird by Mary Oliver Beacon, 96 pp., $23 In a land where few poets can make more than a…
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Another Housing Crisis Brewing
Irresponsible federal and state homeowners' insurance schemes could easily cost the nation several hundred billion dollars when and if a major hurricane hits.
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Another housing crisis brewing
As it continues to pick up the pieces from the mortgage mess, Congress needs to take note of another housing-related crisis that threatens…
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Wall Street Extorts Kyoto Protocol: Lehman, Enron and other Cap-and-Trade Coincidences
Recently, in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, I read a speech by Gunther Verheugen, the E.U.’s Industry Commissioner, revealing his…
Op-Eds
Chevron’s Orwellian Crude Discovery
Chevron has unveiled a revolutionary new way of finding oil. It doesn’t involve satellite telemetry or seismic imaging or someother high-tech means of exploration. It…
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Economic Change We Need
Now that the election is over, the most important issue facing the new president and Congress is the economy. To deal with it…
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Bush Should Keep Promise To Stop New Regs
Despite his party’s defeat at the polls last week, President Bush still wields enormous regulatory power. The way he manages this power—and, in…
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Green Jobs Costly for Michigan
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has been drinking the “green jobs” Kool-aid, recently announcing that she is creating an energy department and naming an…
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Dealing with the Threat of Global Recession
Fred L. Smith Jr. and John Berlau on the upcoming Global Economic Summit: Governments should agree to a timetable to end the bailouts.
Op-Eds
Climate Law No Cash Cow for California
It is said by many that there is a scientific consensus in support of global warming, but there is also an economic consensus…
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Danny Finkelstein is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong about the US elections
Iain Murray is Director of Projects and Analysis at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington DC. The…
American Spectator
Obama vs. Clinton
Ever since the economy emerged as the top campaign issue, Barack Obama has developed two basic messages. One is that the deregulation John McCain…
Op-Eds
Let Friedman Reign
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America By Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus &…
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IgNobels for Obama
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Greens Aim to Take Us Forward to the Past
If you need more evidence that the Greens intend to destroy our standard of living, you need not look further than the Oct.
Op-Eds
The Joe-the-Plumber vote is bigger than you think
Joe the Plumber did more than add some levity to the last presidential debate. Joe, aka Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio, just may have…
Op-Eds
Property insurance gamble: Florida Risks its Fiscal Future on a Quiet Hurricane Season
One simple fact ought to dominate every discussion of Florida’s homeowners’ insurance system: Were a single storm to hit the wrong area, it would literally…
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Florida, Nation Need Federal Insurance Regulator
Much of the turmoil in America’s financial markets involves exotic investments that most Americans never have heard of and never will get near. However, with…
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The End of American Capitalism? 5 Short Takes on Where the Financial Crisis Might Be Headed
Five prominent economists share their thoughts on what’s happening and how bad the situation really is. The past week has seen the US economy…
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Candidates Don’t Come Clean on Coal
A squabble about “clean coal” has broken among the presidential candidates. Neither side has leveled with voters. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden kicked…
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Five-Star Green Hypocrisy
Move over Al Gore. Swankier carbon charlatanism has come to town in the form of the World Wildlife Fund’s luxury getaway called "Around the World:…
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Putin’s Useful Idiots
In the latest issue of Foreign Policy William Yeatman explains how German environmentalists have helped Vladimir Putin fleece Europe.
Op-Eds
Government’s “10,000 Commandments” Cost Americans More than $1 Trillion
Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending, according to “Ten Thousand…
Heartland
Government’s “10,000 Commandments” Cost Americans More than $1 Trillion
Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending, according to “Ten Thousand Commandments,”…
Op-Eds
Accounting rules exacerbate crisis
In the year since the credit crunch began, reading the financial pages has become a bit like perusing a medical journal. Market…
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Card Check: Key to Union Control in US
Organized labor spent heavily to elect a Democratic Congress in America’s 2006 election. With the presidency at stake, unions are expected to spend up to…
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Greens Exploit Wall Street Bailout
Will the Wall Street bailout be the beginning of the New (Green) Deal?…
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The Conscientious Objector
Pete Eyre has a shaved head and six tattoos, including two tattooed quotes: one from Thomas Jefferson—“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”—on his stomach…
Op-Eds
Will More Drilling Increase U.S. Energy Security?
Iain Murray Mr. Abraham’s Parthian shot in this debate is a precise example of why I feared it would disappear in…
Op-Eds
Doing Something
"The government has to do something to keep markets from falling and the economy from getting worse." How many times have you heard…
Heartland
Doing Something?
“The government has to do something to keep markets from falling and the economy from getting worse.” How many times have you heard…
Op-Eds
Picking on the Pickens Plan?
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens’ camp responded last week to this column’s multi-part analysis of the so-called “Pickens Plan.” Focusing on…
Op-Eds
Gale Force Foolishness: Congress pushes for a federal windstorm insurance program.
AS CONGRESS WINDS down its current session, there’s little doubt that plenty of bad ideas will pop out of the woodwork as members…
Op-Eds
Toxic Arguments
A Review of “Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children” by Philip and Alice Shabecoff By Iain Murray There’s…
Op-Eds
Fannie, Freddie Critic Ridiculed In 2000
It is now consensus that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the heart of the systemic meltdown we are seeing in the…
Op-Eds
It’s Paulson’s Own Mess
They said it was "too big to fail." This multi-billion dollar firm was now on the brink of bankruptcy. Although not a bank,…
Heartland
Ecuador Should End WFT Double-speak
In the midst of congratulating the Ecuadorian government on its landmark decision to eliminate the proposed 70 percent windfall tax on mining…
Op-Eds
Maybe the Banks Are Just Counting Wrong
In the year since the credit crunch began, reading the financial pages has become a bit like perusing a medical journal. Market…
Op-Eds
Be wary of insurance rate cut
Although it may seem like an early New Year’s present, North Carolina drivers have every reason to be wary of the 16.1 percent…
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Activists Hit the (Plastic) Bottle Again
Anti-chemical activists opened a new front in their jihad against the plastics chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) this week.
Op-Eds
CAFE Oh Nay, Standard Has Hurt
The Detroit auto industry is clearly a victim of CAFE. But it’s not the only victim, and it’s not even the most prominent one.
Op-Eds
No Compromise in this Energy Bill
There is very little in this bill that energy consumers can be glad about. But the environmental industry's lobby has reason to cheer.
Op-Eds
Labor Goes for the Brass Ring
Organized labor spent tens of millions of dollars and untold man hours to help elect a Democratic Congress in 2006. So far the…
Op-Eds
Government Meddling
Bryan K. Mignone isn’t telling the whole story when he claims that economically harmful climate-change-mitigation policies are necessary as an insurance against…
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Lehman bankruptcy: In capitalism, failure is not a dirty word
My reaction to Lehman Brothers’ declaring of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the refusal of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and…
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Green Shackles
Václav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, chaffed for many years under the thumb of Soviet totalitarianism. In his new book, Blue Planet…
Op-Eds
Pickens’ Natural-Gas Nonsense
"Get this one," says billionaire T. Boone Pickens in his latest TV ad, "Iran is changing its cars to natural gas and we're not doing…
Op-Eds
EU’s Wrongheaded Climate Policy
Assuming that fighting climate change is desirable and that it can be effectively done by limiting man-made CO2 emissions, it is best achieved by making…
Op-Eds
Card check: the key to union control
Organized labor spent heavily to elect a Democratic Congress in 2006. With the presidency at stake, unions are expected to spend up to…
Op-Eds
Minot Line
Over the past decade, the Internet has given new life to one of the oldest forms of media: the urban legend. Sometimes an…
Op-Eds
Cholesterol Drug Scare Shenanigans
Why is the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine encouraging a cancer scare over the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin? Is he overcompensating for past…
Op-Eds
Gang Green
Excerpt: “A few weeks ago I was at the house of some friends, and I accidentally tossed a plastic Gatorade bottle into the glass recycling…
Op-Eds
Union Pension Funds Go Green — But It’s Not the Color of Money
Labor unions are endangering their members' retirement security by using their pension funds for environmental activism.
Op-Eds
What Big Labor Wants
In honor of Labor Day…
Op-Eds
Debunking Democrats on Drilling
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last Tuesday dismissively referred to pro-oil-drilling demonstrators chanting “Drill here! Drill now!” as the “2-cents-in-10-years-crowd.” She may have to revise her…
Op-Eds
Soggy, slow-moving Fay offers lessons
Paying for insurance The Aug. 22 editorial, “Soggy, slow-moving Fay offers lessons,” contains a lot of common sense, but your call…
Op-Eds
Congress Should Develop Smart, Cost-Effective Natural Catastrophe Policy
Although it’s cold comfort to Florida residents dealing with the massive flooding that has resulted from Tropical Storm Fay, the slow moving…
Op-Eds
Sick Patients Need Cutting-Edge Drugs
The story of Anna Tomalis trying to recieve a compassionate usage exemption from the FDA to treat her cancer.
Op-Eds
Congress Should Develop Smart, Cost-Effective Natural Catastrophe Policy
Although it’s cold comfort to Florida residents dealing with the massive flooding that has resulted from Tropical Storm Fay, the slow moving…
Op-Eds
Oil Speculators ‘R’ Us
Those dastardly speculators! As well as oil company CEOs, traders in commodity futures have become convenient whipping boys for politicians of both…
Op-Eds
The Real Population Bomb
It's been 40 years since Stanford University population biologist Paul Ehrlich warned of imminent global catastrophe in his book "The Population Bomb." As it turns out, the…
Op-Eds
Sarbanes-Oxley Challenge Is Rooted in Law’s Flaw
Re: Jane Bryant Quinn’s column, “Accounting Cleanup Board Is Facing a Gutting’’ (July 16): In her attack on our constitutional challenge to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act…
Op-Eds
Environmentalists Prompt Nuclear Power Wake-Up Call
What did the nuclear power industry get for playing footsie with the "greens" on global warming? A knife in the back, it looks like. The…
Op-Eds
Oil Addiction
When cocaine prices shot up last year, White House Drug Czar John Walters touted it as "the best evidence" that the War on…
Op-Eds
In Defense of Early Termination Fees
If early termination fees reduce competition in the cell phone marketplace, then why is there so much of it?…
Op-Eds
The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Deserves a Vote
Free trade is in trouble, as protectionist politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere demagogue against it. Especially egregious is the U.S. Congress’s decision to delay—indefinitely—voting…
Op-Eds
Billionaires won’t keep Florida from fiscal disaster
On July 29, Florida’s State Board of Administration voted to spend $224 million in return for a billionaire’s pledge. Warren Buffett, the…
Op-Eds
‘Poisoned Profits’: Recycled Junk Science
Former New York Times environmental reporter Phil Shabecoff is so green he even recycles debunked health scares.
Op-Eds
Online marketing myopia
We are in the middle of an advertising revolution, driven by technology. Congress is up in arms over "behavioral advertising" online by…
Op-Eds
Global Warming: It isn’t a hoax and it isn’t a crisis
At The Chilling Effect, we like to discuss some of the issues surrounding the potential warming of our planet, and what (if anything)…
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A ‘Hidden Tax’ Of Rules Hits Economy
Regulatory compliance now costs of $1.16 trillion, higher than Canada's entire 2004 GDP—that's a knock-out blow to the economy…
Op-Eds
Flood Control Subsidies Soak the Treasury
Since the first comprehensive flood control legislation went into effect the early 20th century, America’s federal government has fought a never-ending battle to control floods.
Op-Eds
Barney’s Big Idea
A few powerful members of Congress have got it in their heads that it would be a good idea to shake up…
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Pickens Gives New Meaning to ‘Self-Government’
The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens’ plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say…
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Law of Sea Treaty
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), an omnibus treaty originally blocked by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, is back, supported by internationalist activists and profit-minded…
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North v South 2.0
In the seventies and eighties it became trendy to talk about the global gap between "North" and "South," in the sense that…
Op-Eds
LOST crosscurrents
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), an omnibus treaty originally blocked by President Ronald Reagan, is back, supported by…
Op-Eds
Bailing Out Kelo
Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House on Wednesday, the most ironic and far-reaching may be this:…
Op-Eds
Is T. Boone Pickens ‘Swiftboating’ America?
Liberals have done a U-turn on conservative billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens.
Op-Eds
Trust-Funding Fannie and Freddie
Almost every time Congress creates a "trust fund" for a certain policy issue, the money flowing into this "trust fund" is diverted to…
Op-Eds
Indefensible Biofuels
Advocates claim that ethanol mandates and subsidies protect our planet, enhance U.S. security, and ease our pain at the pump. In fact,…
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.
Real Clear Markets
Corporate Welfare for XM/Sirius Competitors?
After a year's delay, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin blessed Sirius Satellite Radio’s buyout of its competitor, XM. Martin is just one of…
Real Clear Markets
Advice to Disregard
I was astounded to see the July 16 op-ed by former Fannie Mae chiefexecutive Franklin D. Raines, "The Help Fannie and Freddie Need."…
Op-Eds
Junk Science: Conservation Nation?
President Bush almost got it right this week when he declined to call on Americans to conserve energy. Sadly, he still seems to think that…
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…
Op-Eds
The Wind Cries ‘Bailout!’
Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens launched a media blitz this week to announce his plan for us "to escape the grip of foreign oil." Now…