By Julian Sanchez
In the most recent issue of The Atlantic, Megan McArdle looks at the regulatory travails of Uber, the innovative smartphone-enabled car service that has found itself in the crosshairs of competition-averse taxi commissions from D.C. to San Francisco. For the uninitiated, Uber is the answer to the question that has occurred to every harried commuter [...]
How Tech Can Render Regulations Uber Obsolete is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Ilya Shapiro
This blogpost was co-authored by Cato legal associate Anna Mackin. Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause case whose cert petition Cato supported with an amicus brief. In that brief, we joined the Pacific Legal Foundation in urging the Court to preserve [...]
Cato’s Amicus Brief Helps Persuade Supreme Court to Protect Private Property Rights is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Mark A. Calabria
The normally insightful Gretchen Morgenson ran a column Saturday that I at first suspected must have been intended for April Fools’ Day. She discusses a paper by University of Chicago professors Eric Posner and E. Glen Weyl that suggests we create an agency like the Food and Drug Administration for financial products. I haven’t yet read [...]
Do We Need a FDA for Financial Journalists? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
Yesterday, I testified (by remote communications) in the Alaska House of Representatives’ Health and Social Services Committee, which is considering a bill to heavily regulate the collection and use of biometrics. The bill is inspired by a man who was denied entry into the CPA exam when he refused to have his fingerprints scanned for [...]
Biometrics—and the Curious Relevance of Occupational Licensing is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Patrick J. Michaels
In its proposed rulemaking on emissions from coal-fired power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency has fulfilled President Obama’s campaign statement that his administration would “essentially bankrupt” anyone who had the audacity to hope to build a new generation facility. By essentially prohibiting the production of new plants, the administration is again picking winners and losers [...]
EPA and the ‘Necessary Bankrupting’ of Coal is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Walter Olson
Amid the ongoing furor over “Stand Your Ground” laws, adopted in Florida and about half the other states, the New York Times invited me to take part in a “Room for Debate” round-table on the subject. An excerpt from my contribution: Under any criminal law, injustice can result if cops get the facts wrong. The [...]
In Defense of ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Ilya Shapiro
In the 2009 case of Ricci v. DeStefano (also known as the “New Haven firefighters case,” in which Cato filed a brief), the Supreme Court declared that an employer that did not certify race-neutral promotion-exam results could be liable to the candidates who were not promoted as a result (because those candidates would have been [...]
Lower Courts Have to Comply with Supreme Court Orders is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Michael F. Cannon
A number of people have asked me what is causing the current shortages in certain types of drugs. Here’s what I’ve been able to discern so far: In general, there are two reasons why shortages might appear in a market. The first is high fixed costs. These include regulatory costs, the costs of converting a [...]
What Is Causing Drug Shortages? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Ilya Shapiro
This blogpost was coauthored by Cato legal associate Chaim Gordon. On Tuesday, the Institute for Justice brought a lawsuit to stop recent IRS regulations that require independent tax return preparers to pay a yearly registration fee, take a competency exam, complete 15 hours of IRS-approved continuing education every year, and possibly subject themselves to mandatory [...]
Suing the IRS for Fun and Liberty is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Walter Olson
Tomorrow is a deadline that looms large for worried pool operators at hotels and public recreation facilities across the country, as USA Today reports: Hoteliers must have pool lifts to provide disabled people equal access to pools and whirlpools, or at least have a plan in place to acquire a lift. If they don’t, they [...]
Pool Closed Until Further Notice is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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