Monday’s NYT reported the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is investigating potential constitutional challenges to the President’s proposed $90-billion bank tax. It’s apparently not enough to argue that the President’s various economic and regulatory initiatives are bad policy — as this proposal is — it must also be unconstitutional. Based on the article, SIFMA […]
Archive | Economic LIberties
Excluding Unfit Workers: Social Control Versus Social Justice in the Age of Economic Reform
By David Bernstein on January 11, 2010 10:48 am in Civil Rights, Constitutional History, Economic LIberties
I’ve just posted this article, co-authored with Tim Leonard of the Princeton Economics department, on SSRN. Here’s the abstract: Contrary to their modern reputation as egalitarian liberals, many of the original progressive architects of American labor reform were partisans of human inequality. The labor legislation they pioneered was, in important respects, designed to exclude immigrants, […]
Underfunded Public Pensions as “Stranded” Costs? Two Trillion Dollars?
By Kenneth Anderson on January 5, 2010 9:17 am in California, Economic LIberties, Economy, Voting With Your Feet
The Financial Times runs a story today by Francesco Guerrera and Nicole Bullock on the looming problems of underfunded public pensions at the state and local level in the United States. The news story cites a new study by Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund: The estimate by Orin Kramer will fuel investors’ […]
New Institute for Justice Economic Liberties Case
By Ilya Somin on December 17, 2009 5:35 pm in Economic LIberties, Originalism, Public Interest Law, Regulation
The Institute for Justice has recently filed a new case challenging an especially egregious infringement on economic liberties under the Constitution: A civil liberties law firm has filed suit against the state of Texas on behalf of eight eyebrow-threading entrepreneurs, several of whom are based in San Antonio. The Institute for Justice, Texas Chapter, is […]