Category Archives: Publications

How to Stand up to Terrorists

Posted on May 4, 2010 | 3 comments

Fear of terrorism is literally irrational. You are 20 times more likely to be struck by lightning than fall victim to a terrorist attack. 200 times more Americans are killed by car wrecks than by terrorists. Yet people seem to be at least 200 times more scared of terrorists than of cars. This makes no logical sense.

In an article in the new issue of the CEI Planet (on page 7), I make the case that this is due to black swan bias, an inborn cognitive bias in the human brain that makes us pay undue attention to rare, catastrophic events and ignore everyday dangers.

Terrorism thrives on black swan bias. Terrorists are so few in number that fear is their only weapon. Every time people submit to new security theater measures, every time we trade away our freedom for the illusion of security, the terrorists win. The way to fight back is to not be scared. Fortunately, the facts give us plenty of reasons to drop our irrational fears.

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Posted in Publications, Security Theater

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Fixing America’s Immigration Black Market

Posted on April 27, 2010 | 1 comment

One of the problems with current immigration laws is that they raise the price of immigrating legally. Basic economics tells us that when something costs more, people consume less of it.

That’s why so many of America’s immigrants are turning to dangerous but cheap immigration black markets to enter the country. This is a problem with an obvious solution. In today’s American Spectator, Alex Nowrasteh and I make the case that lowering the cost of legal immigration through liberalization will reduce the amount of illegal immigration, and shrink cruel black markets.

Basic economics wins again.

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Posted in Economics, Immigration, Publications, Uncategorized

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Ideas for Regulatory Reform

Posted on April 16, 2010 | Comments Off on Ideas for Regulatory Reform

Tax Freedom Day was April 9. But when you factor in the cost of regulation (on which more here), it turns out we work nearly half the year just to pay for government. Wayne Crews and I give the details, as well as some ideas for regulatory reform, over at Fox Forum. The three we give are:

-Disclosure. Each year’s federal budget, or the annual “Economic Report of the President,” should include in-depth chapters exploring the regulatory state, along the lines of Ten Thousand Commandments. The more the public and policymakers know about regulatory costs, the more likely they are to do something about them.

-Eliminate obsolete rules. Congress should task the Office of Management and Budget with identifying rules to eliminate each year. Congress should also implement its own bipartisan packages of cuts to be voted on, up or down, without amendment. Mandatory 5-year sunsets for all new rules would also help. Congress can reauthorize useful rules, while obsolete or harmful ones would automatically expire.

-Most important of all, Congress needs to reassume its lawmaking responsibilities. It passed 125 bills last year—but federal agencies passed 3,503 final rules. This “regulation without representation” should end. There is too little accountability when it comes to regulation.

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Posted in Economics, Publications, regulation

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Ten Thousand Commandments

Posted on April 15, 2010 | Comments Off on Ten Thousand Commandments

Last year Americans paid $989 billion in income taxes (Happy Tax Day!). What you probably don’t know is that federal regulations cost as much as the income tax plus another quarter-trillion — $1.24 trillion in all.

Wayne Crews catalogues the damage in the freshly-released 2010 edition of “Ten Thousand Commandments.” Well worth a read.

If you don’t have time to read the full study, Wayne and I summarize the main findings over at AOL News.

A few numbers you should be aware of: 3,503 new regulations passed last year. Hardly any were repealed. More than 95 percent of the cost is off-budget, since the private sector pays for regulatory compliance costs. That means the burden of government is about a third higher than what it spends — in all, about 30 percent of the economy goes to paying for the federal government

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Posted in Economics, Publications, regulation

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Value Added Tax? Bad Idea

Posted on April 14, 2010 | Comments Off on Value Added Tax? Bad Idea

Today’s Daily Caller has an article by Wayne Crews and I making the case against the VAT, which is becoming a popular idea in this age of trillion-dollar deficits. Our main points:

-It would require roughly doubling the size of the IRS. Enough said

-VATs are untransparent. Sales taxes show up on receipts. VATs don’t. Knowing how much we are taxed is a fundamental right that preserves our ability to challenge excess government in a constitutional republic. A VAT would take that away.

-VATs increase over time. At least they have in 20 of 29 OECD countries that have VATs.

-VATs are prone to special-interest abuse. Politically incorrect goods are easily hit with punitive rates. In Denmark, people pay roughly triple sticker price for cars, for example.

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Posted in Economics, Publications, Taxation

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How to Fix Immigration’s Black Market

Posted on March 31, 2010 | 1 comment

Alex Nowrasteh and I have a piece in today’s Detroit News arguing that liberalization, not regulation, is the way to shrink immigration’s massive black market. Our main points:

-New rules that came into effect this month, such as raising the minimum wage for H-2A visa holders (that’s the visa for low-skilled agricultural workers) makes cheaper undocumented workers look more attractive for employers. They actually harm legal workers.

-Other new regulations, including background checks, workplace inspections, and mountains of paperwork, cost thousands of dollars per employee. These regulations also make black market workers look more attractive.

-The way to reduce illegal immigration is liberalization. For agricultural workers, that means making their H-2A visas inexpensive, easy to obtain, and keeping the bureaucracy to a minimum.

-When legal channels cost too much in time and money, people will turn to illegal channels every time. That’s how the world works. Getting rid of immigration’s black market begins with admitting that fact.

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Posted in Economics, Immigration, International, Publications, regulation

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Will the Jobs Bill Create Any Jobs?

Posted on March 18, 2010 | Comments Off on Will the Jobs Bill Create Any Jobs?

Over at the American Spectator, I explain why it won’t, but a deregulatory stimulus would. Main points:

-Anything that Washington giveth, it must first taketh away from somewhere else. The jobs bill is a zero-sum game.

-When government borrows more, less investment capital is left over for the productive sector.

-Taxes will have to be raised later to pay for today’s increased borrowing.

-Deregulation is a better approach. The biggest obstacles to job creation and economic growth are all in Washington.

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Posted in Business Cycles, Economics, Publications, regulation, Spending, Stimulus

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Does March Madness Really Hurt the Economy?

Posted on March 18, 2010 | Comments Off on Does March Madness Really Hurt the Economy?

An annual study claims that the NCAA’s basketball championship tournament makes workers less productive. The illicit temptations of filling out brackets and watching games instead of working will cost the economy about $1.8 billion this year.  Over at the Daily Caller, I show why that’s (mostly) a myth.

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Posted in Economics, Everybody Panic, Publications, Sports

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Grading Obama’s First Year

Posted on January 21, 2010 | Comments Off on Grading Obama’s First Year

CEI has just released a comprehensive report card on the administration’s first year in office. My contribution is below. The full report card is here.

C- Office of Management and Budget – Peter Orszag, Director
Grader: Ryan Young, Journalism Fellow

Spending and deficits are far higher than under President George W. Bush, himself a big spender. But Obama can’t be given all the blame. The bailout and stimulus spending programs that caused much of the fresh red ink got their start under Bush. In a potentially positive regulatory development, the number of pages in the Federal Register decreased from 79,435 in 2008 to 69,676 in 2009. Of course, the contents of those pages matters more than how many of them there are. And on that front, the new administration is business as usual.

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Posted in Economics, Publications, regulation, Spending

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Scroogenomics

Posted on December 31, 2009 | 1 comment

Today’s Washington Times contains my review of Joel Waldfogel’s book Scroogenomics: Why You shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays.

Here’s a taste:

“‘A cribbage board? You shouldn’t have,’ we tell our mothers-in-law. Indeed.” In those three short sentences, Joel Waldfogel describes the origin of what retailers call “return season” and what consumers call “the week after Christmas.”

Mr. Waldfogel has a point here. By his calculations, such gifts cost the U.S. economy about $85 billion in waste. That’s more than 124 countries’ entire gross domestic product, by the way.

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Posted in Books, Economics, Publications

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