The central broad objective of the U.S. constitution is the protection of unpopular individuals and political groups from the whims and passions of the political majority of the moment. It…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 17, 2018
Demand and supply. Supply and demand. That fundamental analytic framework, simple and powerful as a tool with which to examine the sources of shifts in market prices, often is forgotten…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 21, 2018
I betray no secret when I report that reverence for the silliness embodied in conventional wisdom is a central characteristic of policy debates in the Beltway. No amount of evidence,…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 18, 2018
Editor’s Note: This post represents AEI Resident Scholar Benjamin Zycher’s original content and does not include edits found on the publishing site, The Hill. To access that version of the…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 8, 2018
Earth Day is upon us yet again, and it is difficult not to notice its transformation into a vehicle for corporate virtue signaling: Full-page ads in national and local print…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 20, 2018
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would reinstitute the mid-term evaluation of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards — the fuel-economy rules — for…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 4, 2018
For years Congress has refused to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and now the Trump administration is rolling back the Obama regulations. What are politically-ambitious blue-state politicians to do?…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 6, 2018
Let us now recall the blessed memory of Godzilla, King of the Monsters. I know him as Zilly, as we have grown close over the years and the 30-plus movies that bear his…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 1, 2018
With respect to Washington governor Jay Inslee’s renewed proposal for a “carbon” tax on that state’s greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, a number to keep closely in mind is: 2/1000 of a degree.…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 1, 2018
Litigation may be as American as apple pie, but some lawsuits are so destructive that they stand out even among the hugely expensive wreckage wrought by our legal system. The…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 12, 2018
Remember the Puerto Rico debt crisis? It was only last February that a deal had been worked out between the island government and the holders of debt issued by the Puerto Rico…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 21, 2017
They have failed to convince Congress—even Congresses controlled by the Democratic Party—to impose limits on US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite decades of effort, political threats, and grandstanding. Given the election of Donald Trump, they are losing their efforts to…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 2, 2017
I take a back seat to no one in my condemnations of subsidies and other policy distortions of state and regional electric power markets, a stance that I have maintained for decades.…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 20, 2017
Never let a crisis go to waste, say the politicos, a stance adapted for its purposes by the permanent regulatory bureaucracy: Never let a corporate scandal go to waste. That…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 18, 2017
A rotten apple spoils the barrel, as the old saying goes, and because of regulatory politics and the incentives of agency officials, the spoilage often proceeds unimpeded even if the rotten…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 20, 2017