Author: Iain Murray

The $32 billion collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX came seemingly without warning. Yet it provides plenty of warnings about some ongoing trends in corporate governance. First, regulators often can’t stop investors from fraud. Second, companies that work closely with regulators often do so for their own benefit. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the current fad for “ESG” (environmental, social and governance) investing obscures much of what we need to know about companies. If there is an early warning system about trouble in a company, it’s not in the SEC or any other financial regulator. It’s the short sellers who take…

Rules, regulations and red tape aren’t just annoying — they cost a bundle. That’s the conclusion of a new study by my colleague Wayne Crews. His Ten Thousand Commandments report for 2022 calculates that the cost of federal regulation is almost $2 trillion — working out at $14,000 per household. Worse, the president keeps announcing new initiatives that will add to this burden. The new Congress must say enough is enough and put a stop to this ever-expanding, ever more costly administrative state. We’re not talking about laws passed by Congress here, but a different form of law called regulation.…

The Fifth Circuit has vacated a major regulation promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Payday Lending Rule, which is a major victory for people who might find themselves short of cash for some reason. Perhaps more important, however, is that the court did so because it found that the way the CFPB is funded is unconstitutional. This is a victory for checks and balances and a defeat for the administrative state. The Bureau is one of the most powerful federal regulatory agencies in the country because it has near-unchecked authority to regulate financial institutions’ dealings with their…