In its ceaseless quest to protect us from ourselves, Congress in 2009 compelled credit card companies to confirm an applicant’s “ability to pay” before approving an account. Lawmakers evidently believe that Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and the like somehow lack incentive to manage their own credit risk. (As opposed to, say, …
Numerous Heritage research papers and postings on The Foundry in the past year have reported on the plight of Gibson Guitar, which has been accused by the Obama Administration of running afoul of the Lacey Act—one of the oldest U.S. environmental regulations. Gibson’s violations were deemed so severe that armed …
Following through on President Obama’s announcement last month in Cartagena that the U.S.–Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement will take effect on May 15, 2012, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made the following statement: Beginning today, U.S. agricultural exporters receive duty-free access on more than half of the products we currently …
There are several colloquialisms for “paruresis” (par-YOU-ree-sis), one of the newer additions to the growing list of ailments supposedly protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): “pee panic,” “stage fright,” and “urophobia,” among them. No matter one’s term of preference, they all refer to a difficulty or inability to …
JPMorgan Chase’s announcement that it has lost $2 billion in a failed hedge strategy sent shock waves through the financial world yesterday. And in Washington, the reaction has had a political tone, with calls to accelerate adoption of the “Volcker Rule” limiting investments by banks. But policymakers should take a …
Facebook’s much-vaunted initial public offering is on the horizon and promises to shower a few lucky individuals with millions if not billions of dollars. One of those Facebookers is the company’s billionaire co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who renounced his U.S. citizenship ahead of the IPO, potentially reducing his tax burden. Saverin, …
With negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the U.S. and eight other countries set to resume this week in Dallas, opponents are dusting off the same old discredited arguments against international trade. In a recent Huffington Post article, Leo Hindery of the New America Foundation dismissed the TPP as …
