Topic: Regulation

California’s Contractor Law Violates Free Speech

– January 28, 2020

It is becoming increasingly difficult to reject the hypothesis that California lawmakers are trying to solve their state’s notorious housing crisis by driving out everyone who isn’t a lover of earthquakes, fires, to-die-for weather, and arbitrary gover …

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Reciprocity in Occupational Licensure Might Be a Bad Idea

– January 25, 2020

On April 10, 2019 Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed into law HB 2569, a bill to create “guaranteed recognition” of occupational licenses in other states. This was hailed as a great victory by libertarians and classical liberals who have always argued …

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Is “Sustainable Fish” Real or a Marketing Ploy?

– January 24, 2020

So, yes, I’ve stopped rolling my eyes at the label sustainable. It’s real and it matters. And it shows how markets work even when the odds are against them. What other problems are considered to be insoluble that we need to turn over to the creative forces of society itself?

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Support for Industrial Policy Is Growing

– January 18, 2020

Support for industrial policy is growing. Thankfully, no one is talking yet about the full-blown central planning popular in the 1930s. Instead, what’s now in vogue is a 1970s and ‘80s-era version of industrial policy allegedly meant to improve upon th …

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Regulations are Bringing Back Dirt, Filth, and Disease

– January 17, 2020

We thought these bad old days of dirt, filth, and disease were gone forever. Now they are coming back, gradually, regulation by regulation.

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What If There Was No Legal Smoking Age?

– January 13, 2020

Whether government-mandated or left in the hands of individuals, tobacco use will lead some to tragic consequences. Kids will get cigarettes either way, and adults will try and fail to stop.

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Boeing’s Regulators Diffused Responsibility

– January 11, 2020

When government muddies the waters of responsibility for guaranteeing quality and safety, the result is a false confidence and the acceptance of unwarranted risks that make problems worse not better.

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More Good Arguments Against a Carbon Tax

– December 31, 2019

Carbon taxes do alleviate some negative externalities that we might want to counter — but they come with a nasty drawback (and getting them in place requires an inefficient and opaque political process) that no caring person would want to impose on the poorest of us, namely that basic necessities become more expensive.

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Unsung Heroes: Private Food Inspectors

– December 29, 2019

Both mortality and morbidity figures would be much higher if Americans really did leave something as fundamental as food safety to government bureaucrats.

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National Public Radio Cites AIER on Toilet and Faucet Regulation

– December 27, 2019

I’m very pleased that NPR has cited Bourbon for Breakfast and AIER in a report on low-flow toilets and faucets. On the night that the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump, he delivered a two-hour campaign rally speech that took a d …

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The Year in Bad Ideas

– December 27, 2019

The Green New Deal. Hipster Antitrust. Breaking Up Big Tech. Protectionism. Billionaire Tears. New Tech, Old Jobs. Bitcoin Maximalism. Don’t Inhale That. Elizabeth Warren. National Conservatism.

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Let’s Talk about Ghastly Dishwashers

– December 20, 2019

These regulations have caused an infuriating and devastating degradation of the quality of appliances and the quality of life in our homes.

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