Products
Flirting With Disaster
Congress is again exploring new ways to undermine the private market for homeowners insurance in disaster-prone parts of the country. On February…
Products
Who’ll “Manage” Managed Care?
Public anxieties over the quality and limitations of managed health care are fueling a new round of federal proposals to regulate the medical marketplace. The…
Products
Bail Out For The Foolish
My Daddy always said never get between a fool and his mistake – it would sacrifice the only good that might come from the…
Products
Free Market Mission to Kyoto
Japan’s Foreign Minister opened the United Nations climate conference in Kyoto by calling it "an event that could change the history of mankind." Hoping to…
Products
Farmland Everywhere
To just about anyone who has driven non-stop from St. Louis to Denver it is practically inconceivable that American is running out of farmland. Yet…
Products
The Economy of the Mind
Address to the Competitive Enterprise Institute ANA Hotel, Washington D.C. Tuesday, October 21, 1997 Thank you, Stan [Evans]. As Bill Clinton says…
Products
Deja Vu All Over Again
History doesn’t repeat itself, but the machinations of big-government politicians are vexingly repetitious. Perhaps nothing better illustrates the plus ca change, plus ca meme…
Products
Schell’s Game in Seattle
In November, Seattle voters elected Paul Schell mayor. Few were surprised. Schell was the anointed candidate, the establishment favorite. Populist challenger Charlie Chong, by contrast,…
Products
Every Air Bag A Wanted Air Bag
Last December, as news spread of the risks posed by air bags to children and other vulnerable groups, President Clinton promised that “car dealers…
Products
Whose Information Is It Anyway?
Everyone is for privacy, but not everyone agrees what “privacy” means. Privacy as used in popular parlance can become little more than an…
Products
Air Rules Challenged In Court
The Congressional leadership is unwilling to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s new air quality standards. But this does not mean the standards will last. As…
Products
Privatizing The Inner City
Suburbanites have long benefited from the control over their immediate surrounding environment that they get from the system of land use controls in their areas.
Products
Australia Cool To Warming
In the later stages of the application process for Australia’s foreign service, candidates are provided with an armful of documents detailing the nation’s foreign policy.
Products
Ready! Fire! Aim!
Bush Administration EPA Administrator William Reilly once quipped that his agency’s standard approach when faced with a policy decision could best be characterized as…
Products
Abusing Discrimination
In America at century’s end, the surest way to obtain special treatment for a social group is to assert that its members suffer…
Products
Playing Politics With ATMs
If you’ve ever said to yourself, "There ought to be a law," then you have a friend in the U.S. Senate, and his name…
Products
Another Take On Takings
Imagine a federal law that prohibits people from “taking” something. No, it’s not the U.S. Constitution’s forgotten Takings Clause, which states, “nor shall…
Products
Save Elephants–Buy Ivory
Products
No Quarter for Kyoto
Most policy disputes are first and foremost rhetorical battles for the moral high ground. Is affirmative action unfair racial preference or justice to minorities?…
Products
Back Into Busting Trust-Busters
CEI’s work on antitrust reform may surprise some readers. Antitrust, after all, has been heraled as the "touchstone of a free market." Antitrust…
Products
Rethinking Antitrust Rules
Excerpts from Judge Alex Kozinski's speech at CEI's June 27, 1997 conference on antitrust regulation Printed in the July 1997 issue of CEI…
Products
CAFE’S “Smashing” Success
If at first you cannot succeed in pushing a bad idea, try, try again – just use different rhetoric. Twenty years ago, when corporate average…
Products
End OPIC Investing
Products
Hurricane Hype
The Clinton-Gore Administration has seized upon recent weather extremes to promote the fear of global warming. Speaking in North Dakota after this spring's floods, President…
Products
Asthma, Roaches And Regulations
They are repulsive and annoying, multiply rapidly, scurry off in unexpected directions, and harm human health. Cockroaches and bad federal regulations have more in common…
Products
Disparate Impact Dangers
On March 10 one of the nation's largest property and casualty insurers, Nationwide Insurance Company, agreed to part with $13.2 million to settle allegations…
Products
Precautionary Petard
The Precautionary Principle – the proposition that new technologies or products should not be permitted until we know they won't endanger health, safety, or…
Products
Officious Intermeddlers
With its April 4 decision to block Staples' planned merger with Office Depot, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) provided fresh evidence that antitrust is economically…
Products
Washington Waterworld
Products
Are the CFTC’s Days Numbered?
In the final movement of Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony, his hero is hit by what the Viennese composer calls "three hammer-blows of fate" that ultimately…
Products
Chemical Weapons Convention Sell-out
Not since "read-my-lips" George Bush raised taxes and destroyed his presidency has a Republican leader so soiled the GOP's claim to be a party of…
Products
Species-Friendly Tax Cuts
Products
EPA’s Hazy Air Rules
In the first major environmental effort of the Clinton Administration's second term, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules tightening the nation's standards for two…
Products
Immorality of the Airbag Mandate
While the air bag issue occupies the full-time attention of dozens of technocrats, its ethical aspects have largely been ignored. At CEI's request, Bowling Green…
Products
NAIC Insures Privileged Access
Thousands of insurance executives and regulators converged on Orlando, Fla., in March to attend the spring meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners…
Products
The Ark That Wouldn’t Float
Products
Green Grantmaking in D.C.
Products
Better Late Than Never
The Food and Drug Administration has long been criticized for delaying the approval of new medical drugs and devices. Under outgoing Commissioner David Kessler, the…
Products
New Choices in Auto Insurance
The high cost of auto insurance is a serious concern for many people across the country. Annual premiums can run into thousands of dollars.
Products
Tyranno-Soros
It always makes me queasy when a successful capitalist uses his wealth and talent to sell anti-capitalism. Not because such behavior is a form of…
Products
Drivers Caught in the Full-Cost Trap
Over the past several years, the push to limit Americans' use of their automobiles has gained a great deal of momentum. Advocacy groups and government…
Products
Pension Reform Not So Simple
For years, pension analysts have warned of the unintended consequences of federal pension regulation. In 1996, even President Clinton acknowledged that the growth of regulation…
Products
Defenders of Wildlies
Have you ever been told you were wrong when you knew you were right? Sure, it happens all the time. You say the…
Products
Anti-Environmental Enforcement
Expanding enforcement of environmental “crimes” is at the top of Carol Browner's agenda for 1997. Browner, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, wants to…
Products
More Kid Stuff
Advocates of politically controlled universal health care coverage have retooled their offensive game plan. Uninsured children will serve as blocking backs for an end run…
Products
Cars and Civil Rights
1996 was the Centennial of the Car; it should have been called the Censorial of the Car. From magazine cover stories to interminable PBS…
Products
Legalized Gambling in the United States
Legalized gambling in the United States is increasingly under attack, not only within individual states regarding its proposed expansion into new jurisdictions, but also on…
Products
Real Patient Protection
An old political maxim has it that "as Maine goes, so goes the nation." A few decades ago, however, the balance of political trend-setting power…
Products
No Basis in Reality
"If there is one event that causes the diverse environmental community to hyperventilate in unison, it is an assault on the ESA (Endangered Species Act),"…
Products
Air Bags
Air bags were one of my first issues when I began working in public interest law twenty years ago. I had just started as…