Category Archives: regulation

Does Water Cure Dehydration?

Posted on December 19, 2011 | Comments Off on Does Water Cure Dehydration?

In which I am “interviewed” by my colleague William Yeatman about a recent Regulation of the Day. Click here if the embedded video doesn’t work.

Comments Off on Does Water Cure Dehydration?

Posted in regulation

Tagged , ,

Cronyism in America

Posted on December 13, 2011 | Comments Off on Cronyism in America

Don Boudreaux, Susan Dudley, and Bradley Schiller make some good points:

-Companies spending lots of time and money in Washington begging for handouts is not capitalism.

-Stricter regulation isn’t the solution. Companies routinely rig regulations in their favor to hobble competitors. That isn’t capitalism, either.

If the embedded video below doesn’t work, click here.

Comments Off on Cronyism in America

Posted in Competition, Economics, regulation

Tagged , ,

Regulation Roundup

Posted on December 9, 2011 | Comments Off on Regulation Roundup

Some recent goings-on in the world of regulation:

-The PATRIOT Act is having the unintended consequence of stalling the growth of cloud computing. The Act empowers the federal government to snoop through databases, which makes foreign entities skittish about doing business with Google and other firms. The PATRIOT Act’s national security benefits are somewhat less clear than its economic costs.

-Arlington, Virginia is deregulating massage parlors. Shockingly, it turns out that they are legitimate businesses, not prostitution fronts.

-Toronto parent gets hit in head with soccer ball, school bans balls from its playground.

-TSA stops 17-year old girl because her purse had a design of a gun on it. Not a real gun. Not even a replica of one. A gun-shaped leather patch sewn into her purse.

-13-year old boy arrested for burping.

-Washington, D.C. requires licenses for street photographers.

-The heavily-subsidized Chevy Volt might be a bit of a fire hazard, according to testing. No real-world incidents yet, thankfully. GM is offering to buy them back from concerned owners – of which there are only about 6,000. The Nissan Leaf has not experienced similar troubles.

-Department of Transportation set to ban truck drivers from texting, using cell phones.

-Electronic devices cause zero interference with a plane’s communications. That means the FAA regulation requiring passengers to turn them off has zero safety benefits. Kudos to the New York Times for advocating this regulation’s repeal.

-Boy, 7, kicks bully in the groin. To most people, that’s fair retaliation. To officials at his school, that’s sexual harassment.

Sweden’s government-run health care system denied a legless man a wheelchair because authorities were “uncertain if the impairment was permanent.”

McDonald’s outsmarts the Happy Meal police in San Francisco.

Comments Off on Regulation Roundup

Posted in regulation

CEI Podcast for December 8, 2011: House Passes the REINS Act

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Comments Off on CEI Podcast for December 8, 2011: House Passes the REINS Act

Have a listen here.

The REINS Act would require Congress to vote on all economically significant regulations — rules that cost at least $100 million per year. The House passed the bill yesterday, and now it moves on to the Senate. Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews talks about the impact REINS could have on increasing transparency and accountability. He also offers up a few more ideas for further regulatory reform.

Comments Off on CEI Podcast for December 8, 2011: House Passes the REINS Act

Posted in CEI Podcast, regulation

Tagged , , , ,

Free-Market Fundamentalism

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Comments Off on Free-Market Fundamentalism

This letter of mine in response to Andy Stern’s recent op-ed ran in today’s Wall Street Journal:

If America is indeed a free-market fundamentalist nation, it sure has a funny way of showing it. Federal, state and local governments combine to spend roughly 40% of GDP, and that doesn’t count the cost of compliance with federal regulations.

In his eagerness to attack free markets, Mr. Stern has confused the mixed economy’s crony capitalism with the real thing.

Ryan Young
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington

Comments Off on Free-Market Fundamentalism

Posted in Correspondence, Economics, regulation, Spending

Crazy California Laws

Posted on December 2, 2011 | Comments Off on Crazy California Laws

This photo gallery put together by Sacramento’s CBS affiliate is hilarious. A bit of Friday fun.

Comments Off on Crazy California Laws

Posted in regulation

CEI Podcast for December 1, 2011: The More Numerous the Laws…

Posted on December 1, 2011 | Comments Off on CEI Podcast for December 1, 2011: The More Numerous the Laws…

Have a listen here.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that “Laws were most numerous when the state was most corrupt.” Today, the U.S. Code is over 47,000 pages long. The Code of Federal Regulations runs over 165,000 pages. Matt Patterson, CEI’s 2011-12 Warren Brookes Fellow, applies Tacitus’ insight to U.S. politics and discusses what it will take for substantive reforms to become politically possible.

Comments Off on CEI Podcast for December 1, 2011: The More Numerous the Laws…

Posted in CEI Podcast, regulation

Tagged ,

Deregulation Watch: Horsemeat

Posted on November 30, 2011 | Comments Off on Deregulation Watch: Horsemeat

Unintended consequences are everywhere in the world of regulation. Some rules actually have the exact opposite of their intended effect. This happened after Congress passed a bill in 2006 banning horses from being slaughtered for human consumption. The goal was to improve the well-being of horses. But the rule actually made them worse off.

Some older horses unable to do farm work that would have been slaughtered were instead mistreated, neglected, or abandoned. Last year, about 138,000 horses were taken to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico, defeating the very purpose of the ban.

Recognizing its failure, the ban was lifted earlier this month. Congress and President Obama did the right thing. Now at least one slaughterhouse is expected to open in the next few months. That should create a few jobs at a time when a lot of people could really use one. Most of the meat will be exported to Europe and Asia, since horsemeat doesn’t appeal to American tastebuds.

Comments Off on Deregulation Watch: Horsemeat

Posted in regulation

Tagged , , ,

CEI Podcast for November 23, 2011: The Most Expensive Regulation of All Time?

Posted on November 23, 2011 | Comments Off on CEI Podcast for November 23, 2011: The Most Expensive Regulation of All Time?

Have a listen here.

What is the single most expensive regulation of all time? Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman has one candidate: the EPA’s proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-powered plants. If it passes, the regulation would cost at least ten billion dollars per year to benefit a very small group of people: pregnant women who have subsistence-level income, and eat mostly large fish caught in inland freshwater bodies.

Comments Off on CEI Podcast for November 23, 2011: The Most Expensive Regulation of All Time?

Posted in CEI Podcast, regulation, The New Religion

Tagged , , , ,

My Job Creation Proposal

Posted on November 16, 2011 | Comments Off on My Job Creation Proposal

Over at The American Spectator, I break down the debate over regulation’s impact on the job market and propose one regulation that could create countless jobs:

As everyone knows, winter is coming. And many of the nation’s least-employed states will see a lot of snow this year. Already, giant snowplows are beginning to traverse the highways and byways of Michigan, Ohio, and other states going through hard times. With these plows, one man can do the work of a hundred.

I say we ban snowplows and hand out some shovels.

Think about it for a minute. In Michigan alone, nearly 520,000 people are looking for a job and can’t find one. Tens of thousands of miles of roads zig and zag across the state. If this winter lives up to lofty Midwestern standards, it’s possible that every last one of those 520,000 could work at least part time clearing the way for their fellow citizens. And all because of regulation!

I do enjoy economic humor. Read the whole thing here.

Comments Off on My Job Creation Proposal

Posted in Economics, Publications, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , ,