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Climate Risk, Climate Policy, and the Ukraine Crisis
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) sea-level rise report made a media splash when the agency released it in February. Headlines in…
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Inflation Sets Another 40-Year High: Relief Is in Sight, with Caveats
Inflation set a new 40-year high in February. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.8 percent in February, which annualizes to 7.9…
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Biden’s Repudiation of Trump’s Regulatory Streamlining Agenda: An Inventory
The explicit pro-regulatory shift by the Biden White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has entailed abandonment not merely of…
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House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce Hosts Less than Festive Parade for Big Tech Accountability
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce met on Tuesday, March 1, for a legislative hearing on “Holding…
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How Newt Gingrich Laid the Groundwork for Congressional Staff Unionizing
The current effort by congressional staff to unionize builds on a legal groundwork laid decades ago by Republicans. In fact, the idea…
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The New Office Normal
What is the best workplace model for employers to follow as COVID-19 (hopefully) continues to wind down? In an Inside Sources op-ed currently…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Ukrainian people have proven more resilient that the Kremlin anticipated, though Putin’s invasion continued. President Biden gave his State of the Union speech.
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Climate Change as an “Existential Threat” Is So 2021
President Joe Biden confirmed in his State of the Union address to Congress on March 1 that climate change was…
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Stablecoins Come of Age in Ukraine-Russia Conflict
Across the globe, people living under oppressive regimes are already familiar with stablecoins—digital assets pegged to a stable monetary value, usually the U.S. dollar.
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Don’t Raise Accredited Investor Thresholds
The gulf between Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s rhetoric and the results of his leadership continues to widen. In interviews…
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One Nation, Ungovernable? The Bipolar Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
As we lurch from crisis to crisis, it is interesting to compare the way one administration’s philosophy of government response to both shock and…
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Clean Power Plan Litigation: The Supreme Court Should Rein in the EPA
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. Depending on how the Court decides it, the…
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Disregard the U.N.’s Latest Climate Screed
The second big part of the newly released Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—also known as…
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Biden’s State of the Union “Trillions Down” on Big Government Mistakes
Ladies and Gentlemen, the State of the Union is that of far more government control over the nation’s economy in years. The years following…
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What Do Workers Want?
Pundits and politicians are talking about how to get back to normal as COVID (hopefully) winds down into an endemic disease like the cold…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Twelfth in a Series: Love Field Update)
A few months ago, I blogged about the curious case of a currency seizure at Dallas Love Field. In December, the Dallas Police Department…
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FERC Ignores CEI’s Advice to Steer Clear of Climate Policy
The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is a deeply flawed attempt to assign a dollar value to the cumulative climate-related damages caused…
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Judge Cain’s Injunction Concerning Social Cost of Carbon Is Reasonable
Jonathan Adler’s recent article on a preliminary injunction by Judge James D. Cain makes it sound like it’s crazy, but I’m afraid…
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No Matter How You Heat Your Home, This Winter Is Costing A Lot More
We are wrapping up the winter of 2021-2022, the first full one under the Biden administration and its energy policies. It has been a…
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All Social Media Will Need to Moderate Content
Roughly a year after being booted off the most popular social media networks, former President Trump launched his own digital platform last weekend,…
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Why the Mountain Valley Pipeline Matters
In what came as a surprise to few, if any, observers, the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline has hit another judicial setback that will…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress avoided a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution to fund the government through March 11. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Russia invaded Ukraine last week. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from headlights to glucose monitors. On to the data: Agencies issued 44…
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The One Area Where Voting Rights Isn’t Sacred: Union Elections.
There is one area of voting rights where many Democrats don’t seem to want every voice to be heard: union elections. Democratic lawmakers have…
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Unions Likely Received $36 Million in Improper PPP Loans
It is possible that labor unions improperly received more than $36 million in “loans” under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The program was…
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Vermont Considers Major Forfeiture Reform
Tomorrow, I will testify before the Vermont General Assembly on H. 533, a measure that would reform the Green Mountain State’s system of…
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George Washington, Larry David, Cryptocurrency, and Freedom
One of the most talked-about Super Bowl ads was that of Larry David traveling through history and naysaying innovations that turned out to be…
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Staying the Course for Liberty
At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we focus on policy issues ranging from tech and telecommunications to energy and the environment to financial regulation and…
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SEC Misfires in BlockFi Settlement
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In Memoriam: P.J. O’Rourke
From Rolling Stone to nearly 20 rollicking books, P.J. O’Rourke explained the inexplicable, from war and every imaginable human privation to the peccadillos of…
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State Antitrust Lawsuit Trivializes Security Threats in Mobile App Market
Last July, 36 state attorneys general filed an antitrust suit against Google focusing on app distribution for Android devices through the Google Play…
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Lisa Cook’s First Amendment Problem
Today, the Senate Banking Committee is set to vote on five nominations for the Federal Reserve Board. My CEI colleague Myron Ebell and I…
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Either Support Domestic Mining or Oppose the Climate Agenda; You Can’t Do Both
The Biden administration supports more electric vehicles and wind turbines and solar panels in order to address climate change. It should also support more…
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New Federal Reserve Study Is Surprisingly Upbeat on Stablecoins
Amid the Biden administration’s onslaught against cryptocurrencies, new research from the Federal Reserve surprisingly paints stablecoins in a positive light. In a new…
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Treasury Department Report Endorses Deregulation to Boost the Booze Business
It isn’t often that a Democratic administration endorses deregulation, but that is exactly what the Treasury Department does in a new report on…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Inflation reached an annualized rate of 7.5 percent, with prices going up 0.6 percent just in January. This is highest reading in 40…
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Judge Orders Administration to Cease Using the Social Cost of Carbon
Today, in a sweeping ruling from the Western District of Louisiana, Judge James D. Cain, Jr. ruled that the Biden administration must shelve…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Eleventh in a Series: Highway Robbery in California)
The bandit is the scourge of the traveler. In less developed parts of the world, travelers risk encountering bandits even today. Sometimes the bandit…
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Reciprocal Switching Is a Bad Idea at a Bad Time
The Surface Transportation Board has resurrected a bad idea it considered in 2012 and 2016—mandated reciprocal switching for freight railroads. For background, you can’t…
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New Export-Import Bank President Has Opportunities for Reform
Reta Jo Lewis is about to become the next president of the Export-Import Bank. The Senate confirmed her nomination yesterday. Called Ex-Im for…
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Steel Tariffs against Japan Lifted, Kind of
President Biden is taking a small step toward tariff relief. Japan’s first 1.25 million metric tons per year of steel exports to the…
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New Hampshire Considers Major Forfeiture Reform
The New Hampshire state legislature’s House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety is considering a significant change to the Granite State’s forfeiture…
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Don’t EARN IT
Bad policy made with good intentions still delivers poor results. That is the case with the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive…
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New Mexico Should Reject Interest Rate Limit Base on Federal Mismeasurement
There is an old saying that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” It…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The U.S. government’s debt reached $30 trillion last week. Antitrust target Facebook lost users last quarter for the first time in its…
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U.S. Geological Survey Study Underscores Extent of Import Dependence for Critical Minerals
The U.S. Geological Survey’s recent report, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022, documents the significant extent to which America relies on imports of numerous critical…
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Good News for Facebook Competitors, Bad News for the FTC’s Antitrust Case
Thursday brought some interesting news, none of which were kind to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust case against Facebook. First, Facebook’s number…
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Protect Consumers, Not Competitors
The Open App Markets Act (S. 2710) is the latest in a parade of antitrust legislation aimed at reining in “big tech” companies…
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The America COMPETES Act’s Outbound Investment Review Framework Threatens U.S. Global Economic Competitiveness
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives introduced a bill, the America COMPETES” Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities…
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The COMPETES Act Is a Bad Idea. Here’s What Congress Should Do Instead
The 2,912-page America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength’’) is…
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Even Most Democrats Favor Right to Work Laws
For being so controversial, right to work laws are pretty popular. A majority of states, 27, have them and even Democrats will…
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Indiana Beverage Bill Helps [Some] Businesses by Harming Consumers
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
GDP grew 5.7 percent during 2021, giving further evidence of a strong economic rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, Congress is now…
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Social Cost of Carbon – Pretzel Logic Cannot Save NetZero Agenda
A new paper by economists Nicolas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, Kristina Karlson, and Charlotte Taylor calls upon the Biden administration to set a “social cost of…
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Rising Pay Undermines Push for Increasing the Minimum Wage
A Department Labor report released Friday shows wages rising 4.5 percent, evidence that the Biden administration’s plan to raise the federal minimum wage…
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This Week’s Outrage (Which, Again, Touches on Civil Asset Forfeiture)
Last week, the Birmingham News published a scorching expose of police practices in the little town of Brookside, Alabama (population 1,253). Brookside has…
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CEI Leads Coalition Letter to Department of Energy Defending Freedom of Choice for Light Bulbs
As I described in my recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, A Regulatory Burden For Every Room In Your House, the Biden administration has…
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Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Still a Bad Idea Even If Properly Enacted
The best that can be said about the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw the executive order for its COVID-19 vaccine mandate and instead try…
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A Dangerous Antitrust Game for Microsoft and Consumers
Microsoft’s couldn’t have picked a more inauspicious day to announce its planned acquisition of gaming company, Activision Blizzard. The news came concurrently with antitrust…
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Better Ways to Fight Poverty than the Minimum Wage
Every January, states and cities across the country raise their minimum wages. There are also calls to raise the federal minimum wage, which has…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A major antitrust bill from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is poised to hit the Senate floor without a proper hearing. Considering its contents,…
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Court Enjoins Enforcement of Federal Workforce Vaccine Mandate
The Biden administration has promulgated four COVID-19 vaccination mandates. Two were issued via administration regulations and were recently reviewed by the Supreme Court.
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CFPB’s Dodd-Frank Race and Gender Data Collection Mandates Will Harm Financial Inclusion
In mid-2020, on the 10th anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul being rammed through Congress and signed by then-President Obama, I catalogued the…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Tenth in a Series: Baltimore Edition)
This Baltimore Brew news story describes how the Baltimore Police Department (BPD)—like many police departments around the country—seizes millions of dollars, thousands of…
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As Numbers Stagnate, Unions Continue to Look to Congress For Salvation
The Department of Labor’s latest statistics confirm that the union movement in the U.S. remains stagnant and slowly declining. Only 10.3 percent of…
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The American Innovation and Choice Online Act Would Regulate Away Consumer Benefits
Perhaps Congress’ enthusiasm for ongoing government oversight of business decisions, embodied in tomorrow’s closed door markup of the American Innovation and Choice Online…
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Comments on Department of Labor Pension ESG Rule
At the end of last year, the Department of Labor (DOL) published a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking to rewrite rules on pension…
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Six Myths about Bitcoin Energy Use
Newsweek: Bitcoin Mining on Track to Consume All of the World’s Energy by 2020 Bloomberg: What if there were a safe…
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Larry Fink and BlackRock Pulling Back on “Woke” Investing?
Larry Fink and his team at BlackRock seem to have heard the growing roar of opposition to politicized investing that is emerging in the…
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In Russia, Government Tells Internet What to Say
As a general rule, if you’re on the same regulatory page as Russia, you should probably turn the page—if not set fire to it.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone. Inflation hit a 40-year high last week. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging from French dressing freedom…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrages (Ninth in a Series: Texas Edition)
There is a big difference between being accused of misconduct and a court finding of misconduct. Nonetheless, the recent accusations leveled against Nathan Johnson,…
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The Fed Is Not a Climate Regulator
On Tuesday, January 11, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on the re-nomination of Jerome Powell to be Federal Reserve chairman. If…
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Equity Crowdfunding Success Should Spur Further Deregulation
Equity Crowdfunding (Reg CF), the innovative tool that allows middle class people to invest in early-stage companies, has now topped $1.1 billion in…
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CEI’s Advice to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: Steer Clear of Climate Policy
On Friday, January 6, CEI submitted comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s November 2021 Technical Conference on Greenhouse Gas Mitigation under…
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Sustainable Aviation Fuel Provisions In Build Back Better – A Slippery Slope?
There are many carrots for low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels in the Build Back Better legislation passed by the House and now being…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Teachers’ unions continued to make an eloquent case for school choice by shutting down schools in major cities like Chicago. The country also observed…
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Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments over Vaccine Mandates
Today the Supreme Court heard over three hours of oral arguments on two of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In the…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Eighth in a Series)
I wish it were harder to find forfeiture outrages to write about, but they keep popping up. This week, I focus on Massachusetts.
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Retro Book Reviews: A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity by Luigi Zingales (Basic Books, 2012)
University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales’s book A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity, which celebrates its 10th…
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An Option Isn’t an Option When It’s Mandatory, Even Online
Later this year, Instagram users will have the option of a chronological feed of the accounts they follow. This option is already available…
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Which Classic Books Deserve a Retro Review in 2022?
Every year, there’s a tsunami of new books about economics, politics, and public policy that are full of hot takes and policy recommendations. In…
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America Can Keep Its Cool If Senate Rejects Kigali Amendment
The Biden administration apparently wants to add air conditioning to the long list of items becoming more expensive. This latest threat to consumers comes…
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Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Promise New Regulation in Agriculture and other Sectors
After stepping off into the snow upon arrival Monday, January 3, President Joe Biden headed back to the White House, where his first action…
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Tell Us It Ain’t So, Joe
There is at least one news report that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has continued negotiating with the White House on a slimmed down…
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New York State of Mind Wrong on Social Media Regulation
Recent injunctions, in both Florida and Texas, against state-level social media laws championed by Republicans illustrate the difficulties of regulating content moderation…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy new year, everyone. The Biden administration’s first Federal Register volume is officially complete. While there likely will not be much significant legislation in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Federal Register took Christmas Eve off, and here’s hoping everyone had a happy holiday season. One more week to go in 2021. The…
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Edmans, Soukup, and Devine: 2021 Book Review Roundup
We saw some great books on economics and politics published over the past year, and some excellent book reviews. Just this week, my colleague…
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This Week’s Outrage (which Touches on Civil Asset Forfeiture)
Last month, The New York Times reported on the way that law enforcement officers take money from the rest of us. I’ve been…
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Review of Vivek Ramaswamy’s Woke, Inc.
Vivek Ramaswamy—pharmaceutical entrepreneur, son of immigrants, Yale Law grad, Hindu, and political conservative—is a capitalist with a lot of strong criticism for big business…
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Best Books of 2021: Keith E. Stanovich, The Bias that Divides Us: The Science and Politics of Myside Thinking (MIT Press, 2021)
Today’s political polarization isn’t just annoying; it’s damaging important cultural and family institutions. And tensions won’t deescalate until people figure out the root of…
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Best Books of 2021: Ryan Bourne, Economics in One Virus (Cato Institute, 2021) and Caleb Fuller, There Is No Free Lunch (Freiling, 2021)
Economists are an unpopular bunch. One reason for this is that much of their job is putting parameters on people’s utopias. Spending more…
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Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority Is Becoming a Global Problem
When British supporters of Brexit talked of “global Britain,” they probably didn’t have in mind British bureaucrats dictating to the world how businesses should…
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CEI in Amicus Brief Asks Supreme Court to Block the Clean Power Plan that Congress Rejected
People often talk about the undemocratic and illegitimate administrative state, of which the Clean Power Plan (CPP) is the perfect example. The Supreme Court…
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What’s Ahead for Regulation in 2022?
There are two questions about the coming year in regulation. The first is what will happen. The second is what should happen. What…
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The Challenges of ESG Investing in Space
Last month, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion on the future of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Two big pieces of good news last week were the Senate’s decision to shelve the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better spending bill and…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Seventh in a Series)
I’m happy to report that I’ve discovered no new civil forfeiture outrages this week. Instead, I’ll write about two civil forfeiture outrages that are…
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The SEC’s Irrational Fear of Bitcoin
“The Commission has no basis for the position that investing in the derivatives market for an asset is acceptable for investors while investing in…