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In the first presidential debate, one of Jim Lehrer’s “hard hitting and incisive” questions was to ask Governor Romney whether he thought any current regulation was “excessive.” In the response, Romney said the following: Dodd-Frank was passed. And it includes within it a number of provisions that I think has some unintended consequences that are […]

For years, many thoughtful people — progressive thinkers, anti-hunger advocates, and business executives at the mercy of energy and food prices — have appealed for relief from rampant speculation that distorts the commodities markets. Such speculation makes traders rich, but burdens American households, hurts businesses, and leads to empty bellies in areas throughout the world […]

It appears that the German Bundestag is ready to impose meaningful limits on high-frequency trading, or “HFT.” This is a very big deal. High-freqeuncy trading is an extraordinarily dangerous practice that has fundamentally changed capital markets in the U.S. and around the world, and not for the better. The U.S. regulators seem to have recognized […]

As a practical matter, government largely functions through bureaucratic regulations. But controversy is growing around the seemingly benign requirement that regulators consider costs and benefits when adopting new rules. Despite the rationality implied by the words “costs and benefits,” those who champion greater attention to these factors are, in fact, mounting an insidiously dangerous attack […]