Category Archives: Publications

Sugary Soda and The American Spectator

Posted on September 20, 2010 | Comments Off on Sugary Soda and The American Spectator

The American Spectator has kindly asked me to contribute to their blog. My first post ran today. It’s about Boston’s proposed ban on non-diet soda sales in government buildings. Read it here if you like.

Blogging at this site will be unaffected.

Comments Off on Sugary Soda and The American Spectator

Posted in Nanny State, Publications, regulation

Federal Register Hits 50,000 Pages

Posted on August 17, 2010 | Comments Off on Federal Register Hits 50,000 Pages

And it’s on pace to hit a near-record 80,447 pages. Over at the Daily Caller, I crunch some of the numbers and offer up some Ideas for regulatory reform, inspired by Wayne Crews’ 10,000 Commandments.

-The Federal Register’s accelerating pace is due to two things. One is implementation of the health care and financial regulation bills. The other is that, fearing a party change in Congress, lame-duck regulating may have already begun.

-Keeping Federal Register page counts in check is important. Keeping the contents of those pages in check is even more important. Comprehensive regulatory reform involves much, much more.

-Such as five-year sunsets for all new regulations unless specifically reauthorized by Congress.

-And a comprehensive look at the regulatory state in each year’s Economics Report of the President.

-And a bipartisan commission to comb through the books for harmful or obsolete regulations. They would hand their recommendations for repeal to Congress for an up-or-down vote, without amendment.

Comments Off on Federal Register Hits 50,000 Pages

Posted in Publications, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Justice Kagan, Please Be a Judicial Activist

Posted on August 6, 2010 | Comments Off on Justice Kagan, Please Be a Judicial Activist

Over at the Daily Caller, I explain why newly-minted Justice Kagan should be a judicial activist — but not in the way most people use the term. True judicial activism doesn’t mean legislating from the bench. It means standing up to the executive and legislature and striking down unconstitutional laws. Unfortunately, Justice Kagan seems like she would rather defer to the branches that gave her her new job:

There is a reason why the Supreme Court is filled with Justices eager to defer to the political branches. It’s because the political branches get to pick who sits on the bench. No president would nominate a judge who might nullify his administration’s signature achievements. No Senator would vote to confirm a judge who might strike down an important bill that she wrote. There is a selection bias favoring judicial passivists.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel:

Justice Kagan was nominated and confirmed because of her judicial passivism. But now that she’s in, she’s in for life. She can stand up for the judicial branch if she wants to. If a case comes before her involving a law that is clearly unconstitutional, her rightful duty is to strike it down.

In many cases, it’s as easy as just saying no.

Comments Off on Justice Kagan, Please Be a Judicial Activist

Posted in Law, Political Animals, Public Choice, Publications

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Brett Who Cried Wolf

Posted on August 4, 2010 | Comments Off on The Brett Who Cried Wolf

Over at the American Spectator, I express skepticism over Brett Favre’s retirement announcement:

No doubt Brett means it when he says he’s done. But that could change tomorrow. It all depends on what hurts more: his ankle, or the thought of seeing his old team(s) win without him. Expect the Vikings to do all they can to push him towards the latter.

As a Packer fan, a Favre retirement does bode well for my team. But I will miss seeing him play if he really is done.

Comments Off on The Brett Who Cried Wolf

Posted in Publications, Sports

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Economists vs. Economics

Posted on July 22, 2010 | 1 comment

Are economists ruining economics? Over at the American Spectator, I say why that may well be be the case. Key points:

-Economists can’t even predict whether the stock market will go up or down tomorrow. Yet many economists tell everyone who will listen that they know how to solve the financial crisis and dig out of a near-global recession. No wonder people aren’t taking them as seriously as they used to.

-Economics isn’t the problem. The economic way of thinking is as powerful a tool as any for understanding the world around us. But it has its limits. Too many economists have pretended those limits away out hubris, or for political reasons.

-Any economist saying he understands global business cycles when he can’t even understand the pencil poking out of his breast pocket is a charlatan. But the discipline he dishonors is as beautiful as poetry. Interested readers should take a look at Leonard Read’s classic short essay, “I, Pencil,” as a case in point.

1 Comment

Posted in Economics, Publications

Tagged , , , , , ,

Responding to Media Matters

Posted on July 14, 2010 | 1 comment

Apparently the folks at Media Matters didn’t care for my July 12 article in the Daily Caller debunking the cell phone cancer scare.

The trouble is, I’m not quite sure why. They never say. Jamison Foser’s blog post doesn’t touch a single argument I made in the article. Instead he attacks me personally, as well as CEI. For all I know, he agrees with everything I said. Or maybe he disagrees. I don’t know.

His main point is that corporate funding makes arguments untrustworthy. Since CEI receives some corporate funding, we are therefore suspicious. This is not a rigorous line of thought. Arguments are either right or wrong. The presence or absence of corporate funding has nothing to do with whether an argument is right or wrong.

There is also the matter of Media Matters’ own very generous corporate donors, which Foser does not address.

Media Matters’ fixation on corporate funding is an easy way for them to avoid genuine intellectual engagement. It is a diversion. If you are unable to attack the argument, then attack the person making it.

This ad hominem attack deserves a rebuttal. The Daily Caller was kind enough to run mine this morning. I hope you will take a few minutes to read it.

1 Comment

Posted in Argumentation, Correspondence, Everybody Panic, Philosophy, Publications, The Partisan Mind

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cell Phones Don’t Cause Cancer

Posted on July 13, 2010 | 1 comment

Over at the Daily Caller, I debunk the fear that long-term cell phone use can cause brain tumors. San Francisco and Maine already have warning label regulations on the books. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced federal warning label legislation. Here are the main reasons they’re wasting their time:

-Activists promoting the scare only ever mention brain tumors. But you hold your cell phone in your hand. You hold it next to your ear and your jaw. Why no mention of those cancers? Suspicious.

-Most phones only emit one watt of energy. The human body generates about a hundred times that much energy during normal, everyday activity. Adding a single watt to that baseline does nothing to contribute to the DNA damage that can lead to tumor growth.

-Cell phone photons are so weak, they fall short of DNA-damaging energy levels by about a factor of 500,000. So you might have something to worry about if you strapped half a million cell phones to your body. That would be getting crushed to death, not cancer. Phones don’t operate at cancer-causing frequencies.

1 Comment

Posted in Everybody Panic, Publications, regulation, Science, Technology

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Benefits

Posted on July 8, 2010 | 1 comment

This letter of mine ran in today’s New York Times in response to Paul Krugman’s July 4 column.

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman is at a loss to explain why some people oppose extending unemployment benefits. One reason people hold such an opinion is that when government subsidizes something, there tends to be more of it.

The more government subsidizes unemployment, the more people will indulge in it for longer periods of time.

Ryan Young
Washington, July 6, 2010

The writer is a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

1 Comment

Posted in Correspondence, Economics, Price and Wage Controls, Publications, Spending

Tagged , , , , , ,

New Issue of the CEI Planet

Posted on July 2, 2010 | Comments Off on New Issue of the CEI Planet

The latest issue of the CEI Planet is online. In addition to articles on Andy Stern’s SEIU exit and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s anti-Facebook crusade, Wayne Crews and I make the case against a value-added tax on page 6.

Comments Off on New Issue of the CEI Planet

Posted in Economics, Publications, Taxation

Let Your Voice Be Heard

Posted on May 7, 2010 | Comments Off on Let Your Voice Be Heard

Today’s Daily Caller features an article from me about CEI’s entry in the EPA’s YouTube video contest on regulations, expertly produced by my colleagues Drew Tidwell and Nicole Ciandella.

The theme of the video contest is “Let your voice be heard.” The problem is that over-regulation drowns out your voice in a cacophony of commands and controls from the minute you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night. The Code of Federal Regulations is 157,000 pages long. And it’s still growing. Enough is enough.

Hopefully CEI’s video isn’t the only entry that makes that important point.

Comments Off on Let Your Voice Be Heard

Posted in Publications, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , , ,