Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

Last week Minnesota’s Senate Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee passed out a law that recognizes a fundamental right to engage in an occupation–any rule or regulation that violates the right would trigger strict scrutiny: Subd. 2. Right to engage in an occupation. (a) An individual may engage in a 1.11legal occupation without being subject to statutes, […]

Apparently King & Spalding’s new marketing strategy of “cut and run” when faced with politically correct pressure is not a universal success with its other clients: Virginia AG Ken Cucinelli has fired King & Spalding as counsel in matters for which the firm had been retained.  Here’s the story. I’ve not located the actual letter, […]

I was on the John Batchelor show the other day discussing my recent article in National Affairs on the auto bailouts and Obamanomics.  Audio of the segment is here.   It is about 15 minutes long.  The article is here.

I just got a new smartphone.  In the process I was involuntarily “upgraded” to the new Yahoo calendar–which has to be among the most aesthetically gruesome and operationally dysfunctional pieces of garbage that I have ever experienced.  What could they possibly have been thinking?  And, of course, they don’t enable you to continue to use […]

I’ve written previously about the TCF v. Bernanke case in which I filed an amicus brief on behalf of several law professors and economists.  As part of the case an injunction was requested.  Last week the District of South Dakota denied the injunction.  Lee Istrail of Kelly Drye has a summary.

P.J. O’Rourke has become somewhat formulaic at times, but his review of Amy Chua’s book had me laughing so hard in a few places that people in the airport thought I had lost my mind.

Congratulations to Avraham Cutler, the winner of the VC March Madness pool and a snazzy VC t-shirt.  Avraham correctly picked U Conn to win it all and also picked Richmond for the Sweet 16, gaining himself some upset points.  No one picked Butler to win it, so I guess for our sake it is good […]

Anthony Sanders and Michael Lea critically examine the preferred position in American real estate financing of the 30 year self-amortizing fixed rate mortgage with an unlimited prepayment right.  Anyone with a fixed-rate mortgage who has a house that is currently underwater and has been unable to refinance into the lower mortgage rates of the past year […]

I have an essay in the latest issue of National Affairs, “The Auto Bailout and the Rule of Law.”  There are several other articles well-worth reading, including Richard Epstein on “Government by Waiver” and John Taylor on the financial crisis and economic policy making. I want to add that writing for the National Affairs was […]

A nice summary and analysis of Jonathan Haidt’s recent challenge to academic cultural orthodoxies.

It appears that I created some confusion in finding the correct bracket for this year’s contest.  Apparently some of the groups from past years are still existing on the CBS Sports website and some people have ended up in one of those, in particular a group from a previous year called “Volokh.” I’m going to […]

It has been along time since I’ve heard anything about David Stockman.  But this analysis of the justification for the bailout (including intervening to preserve the commercial paper market) raises some excellent questions.  As does his analysis of the federal budget and what the future holds. Even if Stockman is wrong about the need for […]

Yes folks it is that time of year again–time for the Volokh Conspiracy March Madness pool.  To the winner goes a nifty Volokh Conspiracy T-shirt. To join, click here.  The password in case you need it to register, of course “Volokh”. I’ve configured it to increase the weight in each round (from 1 up to 32) […]

Thanks to the kind invite of Jonathan Adler and the Case Western Reserve Law School Center for Business Law and Regulation, I’m honored to have been invited to give the Dean Lindsey Cowen Business Law Lecture at Case Western tomorrow from 4:30-5:30.  My topic will be “The Mortgage Crisis and the Flawed Response of the Consumer […]

Kent Barnett argues that the manner in which the Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is appointed is potentially unconstitutional under Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB.  I am not an expert in Appointments Clause jurisprudence but I found the argument to be persuasive on my read. Boyden Gray and John Shu have argued […]