From The Freemen News-Letter.

​Editor’s note: this piece was originally published here.

A viral clip on X (formerly Twitter) has reignited the debate over rent control, and for good reason. 

The video features a New York City tenant, Hattie Kol, paying just $1,334 monthly for a 1,500-square-foot Upper West Side luxury apartment with fireplaces, chandeliers, and a butler’s pantry. This rent is well below the market rate and median rent in the city of $3,500. Her family acquired the unit through rent stabilization 22 years ago, allowing her to stay indefinitely. She is now paying only 39 percent of the median rent in the city, highlighting the mismatch created by rent control. 

While this may seem like a win for the tenant, it’s a loss for the broader market, particularly for lower-income renters forced to compete in an increasingly constrained housing market.

At its core, rent control is a well-intentioned policy aimed at keeping housing affordable by capping rents. However, it disrupts the natural balance of supply and demand, discouraging developers from building new housing and disincentivizing landlords from maintaining or upgrading existing units. 

In the long run, this creates a housing shortage and degrades the quality of available units, all while keeping the most vulnerable renters stuck in a perpetual housing crisis.

The Flawed Economics of Price Controls
Rent control is a classic case of how price controls distort markets. By capping rents below the market rate, it prevents prices from reflecting the true quantity demanded and supplied for housing. This results in fewer new units being built and existing properties falling into disrepair because landlords have less incentive to invest in them. By reducing the quantity supplied of housing, rent control limits choices and increases the quantity demanded for the few units that remain on the market.

The economic consensus against rent control is overwhelming. Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman famously argued that price controls, including rent control, are among the surest ways to create shortages. In the case of housing, this policy leaves cities like New York with fewer affordable units and an overall decline in the quality of available housing.

Who Benefits From Rent Control?
While rent control is marketed as a tool to help low-income renters, the reality is quite different. Higher-income tenants often benefit the most, locking in rent-controlled units because they pay far below market value. In cities like New York and San Francisco, people who can easily afford market rates stay in these units for years, while low-income families face fierce competition for a limited number of affordable apartments.

The woman in the viral clip is paying just 39 percent of the market rent, but there’s no evidence she needs that discount to survive. Meanwhile, those who do need affordable housing are crowded out. The result is a system where rent control helps the fortunate few while pushing the most vulnerable out of the market.

Government Failures vs. “Market Failures”
Proponents of rent control often cite “market failures” to justify government intervention. However, government failures are far more damaging, especially in housing. Rent control policies in places like New York and San Francisco have created severe housing shortages, leading to skyrocketing rents in the non-controlled market and forcing people to compete for fewer and fewer units.

Take Houston, a city that has embraced more free-market housing policies. Without zoning laws or rent control, Houston has managed to maintain much more affordable housing by encouraging the free market to meet demand. Rather than dictating prices, the city has allowed builders and developers to respond naturally to market signals, increasing housing supply and lowering prices.

The Unintended Consequences of Rent Control
​One of the greatest flaws in rent control is that it fails to address the underlying reasons for high rents. Instead of tackling restrictive zoning laws, excessive regulations, high property taxes, rising insurance, or other government-imposed barriers that drive up housing costs, rent control merely treats the symptoms. The result is fewer available units, a deteriorating rental stock, and even higher rents for those outside the rent-controlled system.

Landlords, faced with below-market rents, often convert rental units into condos or leave them vacant rather than rent them out at lower rates. This leads to a further reduction in available rentals and worse living conditions for tenants. It’s a vicious cycle that harms the housing market and the people relying on it.

The Path Forward: Embracing Free Markets
The solution to housing affordability isn’t more government intervention — it’s less. Instead of imposing price controls that distort the market, governments should focus on reducing housing construction and investment barriers. This means reforming zoning laws, streamlining building regulations, and encouraging new development. By allowing the market to function freely, we can increase housing supply, drive down costs, and create more opportunities for people at all income levels.

The viral clip on X is a powerful reminder of why rent control fails. While it may provide short-term relief for a select few, it harms the broader housing market and exacerbates the problems it purports to solve. If we want to make housing truly affordable, we need to let the market work — by encouraging development, reducing regulatory burdens, and allowing supply to meet demand.

Let’s move beyond failed policies like rent control and embrace free-market solutions that benefit everyone, especially those needing affordable housing.

Originally published at Daily Caller. 

​The Biden administration’s heavy regulation of America’s banking industry hinders economic growth and raises consumer costs. As FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg faces scrutiny over the agency’s toxic workplace culture, lawmakers have a prime opportunity to address the broader issue of overregulation. 

Instead of focusing solely on internal misconduct, Congress should seize this moment to reduce the oppressive regulatory framework burdening financial institutions and the economy.


The current banking regulatory environment is burdensome and counterproductive. Tens of thousands of pages of rules and guidance dictate banking operations and are treated as legally binding by U.S. regulators. Multiple agencies, including the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, and CFPB often overlap and contradict each other, leading to confusion and inefficiency.

This excessive regulation is an administrative burden and a significant barrier to economic prosperity.

The Biden administration’s regulatory overreach is evident in the extensive presence of government examiners within banks. These examiners enforce ad hoc mandates that effectively dictate business decisions, and failure to comply can result in secret, unappealable ratings downgrades. This system creates a chilling effect, stifling innovation and growth.


The annual stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve impose the highest bank capital requirements globally. However, these tests rely on opaque models and unrealistic scenarios and are never subjected to public scrutiny. This significantly impacts how banks operate and adds to the regulatory burden. The lack of transparency undermines the credibility of regulatory agencies and results in unnecessary costs for banks, which are often passed along to consumers.

Furthermore, the politicization of agencies such as the CFPB, FDIC, and OCC exacerbates the problem. These agencies increasingly pursue regulatory agendas through public relations stunts and policy announcements from the White House rather than through transparent processes. The predominantly progressive leanings of regulatory staff further bias outcomes against the banking industry, contributing to an environment in which financial institutions are unfairly targeted and overburdened with compliance costs.

The economic consequences of this regulatory overreach are profound. As compliance costs soar, assets are migrating away from traditional banks, despite banks having access to deposits and being able to provide low-cost credit. This mainly affects community, mid-sized, and regional banks, which struggle with the high compliance costs of holding a banking charter.


For all banks, high capital requirements and intense supervision increase the cost of lending, significantly impacting small businesses and low- to moderate-income individuals. This limits access to credit and slows economic growth. Reducing these excessive regulations would lead to significant gains in economic activity, highlighting the substantial benefits of reducing overregulation.

The Biden administration’s excessively complex regulations, oppressive oversight, and politicized agenda stifle innovation, raise consumer costs, and hinder economic growth.

Given these glaring issues, Congress should streamline regulations, increase transparency by requiring regulatory agencies to publish their models and scenarios for public comment, and ensure regulatory agencies operate independently of political influence. This would provide regulatory relief for community, mid-sized, and regional banks to enhance competition and access to credit.


By reining these excesses in, Congress can unshackle the economy and promote a more competitive, dynamic financial sector that benefits all Americans. The potential rewards — a more prosperous, innovative, and dynamic America — make this a fight worth undertaking.

​Join me in this insightful episode of Let People Prosper as I dive into the economic implications of government regulations with Dr. James Broughel, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 

We explore:

- Which regulations pose the greatest economic burdens?
- How crucial are cost-benefit analyses in regulatory practices?
- Can some regulatory adjustments be "free lunches"?

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode to help spread valuable information. For more insights and bi-weekly episodes, subscribe to my newsletter at vanceginn.substack.com. Visit vanceginn.com for additional resources.

Originally published at Daily Caller.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) recent regulatory proposals have concerned stakeholders across the U.S. insurance landscape. At the heart of the controversy are proposed changes that could fundamentally alter how life insurance companies invest in financial instruments, with far-reaching consequences for the broader economy and, more specifically, the retirement security of millions of Americans.

The NAIC, as a non-governmental entity that wields considerable influence over the insurance industry’s regulatory framework, operates in a unique space where its decisions can have national implications. Its recent move to increase capital requirements from 30% to 45% on residual asset-backed securities (ABS) tranches is a poignant example of regulatory action with unintended consequences. 

The proposal reflects a perceived higher risk assessment by necessitating higher financial reserves against these investments. However, this risk reassessment and the consequent regulatory response have not gone unchallenged. 

Critics, armed with analyses such as the Oliver Wyman report, contend that the data does not substantiate these changes, highlighting a dissonance between the empirical evidence and regulatory action.

The implications of the NAIC’s proposals extend beyond the immediate financial health of life insurance companies to impact broader retirement planning. By disincentivizing investments in ABS and similar financial instruments, these regulatory changes threaten to narrow the investment options available to life insurance companies. 

Given the critical role that life insurance companies play in providing annuity products and as major institutional investors, the potential for these regulatory changes to affect market dynamics and returns for retirees is a major concern. These decisions should be made from a bottom-up approach in the marketplace, not from a top-down approach by NAIC.

Amidst these regulatory developments, the suggested influence of external political forces, including the Biden administration and labor unions, introduces an additional layer of complexity. The assertion that these proposals may be driven by broader political objectives, rather than by an unbiased assessment of market risks and consumer protection needs, underscores the potential for regulatory processes to be co-opted for ideological ends. 

This prospect is particularly troubling in retirement planning, where American workers’ and retirees’ economic well-being and choices should be paramount.

The debate over the NAIC’s proposed regulatory changes highlights the broader challenges of ensuring that this regulatory body operates with a commitment to transparency, accountability and evidence-based policymaking. An institutional framework that supports free-market competition, consumer choice and the economic interests of Americans in this financial space is needed, given the oversized influence of NAIC and the government. 

As the insurance industry navigates these regulatory waters, the call for a balanced, data-driven approach to regulation — prioritizing American workers’ long-term financial security and the U.S. economy’s health — is urgent. Regulation should be the last resort instead of the first for potential problems, as the marketplace, through a well-functioning price system, is best at regulating things to those who want and provide them most.

The NAIC’s regulatory proposals represent a critical juncture for the U.S. insurance industry and the financial system supporting American retirement planning. The potential for these proposals to disincentivize key investment strategies poses a considerable risk to the sustainability of defined-contribution plans. It highlights the need for vigilant oversight of the regulatory process to hold regulators in check. 

Stakeholders, including policymakers, industry leaders and the public, must engage in substantive dialogue to ensure that future regulatory actions are grounded in solid empirical evidence and aligned with the prosperity of Americans. 

As this debate unfolds, upholding principles of competition, consumer protection and the integrity of the retirement planning framework in the marketplace remains paramount. At best, the NAIC proposal should be delayed for a year to give more time to examine its effects. But given the evidence so far, the proposal should be trashed.

Originally published at Econlib.

President Biden signed a sweeping executive order to “harness” and “keep” artificial intelligence, two words you never want to hear from the government. This new regulation will inhibit Americans’ flourishing because restricting free markets never works.

The EO is reported to ensure safety, equity, and responsible development. While these goals may appear laudable, delving deeper reveals that this motion will hinder economic progress and stifle the innovation it aims to promote. That’s why policies must always be judged by their results rather than their intentions.

Details of the order’s objectives include safety tests, industry standards, and government oversight to address potential risks associated with AI. Forcing AI companies to conduct safety tests before going public, known as “red teaming,” will significantly slow the development and deployment of AI technologies. 

It’s well-established that innovation thrives in an environment of minimal regulatory interference called “permissionless innovation.” So introducing these bureaucratic hurdles will hinder fast-growing AI and all the industries that have begun to rely on it. Medicine and biotech, in particular, have realized remarkable potential with AI that has life-saving ramifications.

But Biden’s overreaching EO wants to harness that. 

As is the case with many regulations, the EO comes at not just a cost to the individuals it affects but to the government’s pocketbook as well. 

As part of its endeavor to “preserve individuals’ privacy,” the administration will fund the Research Coordination Network.

At a time when wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation and the average American family is losing real money due to a suffering economy, the government adding an expense like this is an insult to injury. Congress needs to reduce spending, and the Fed needs to slash its bloated balance sheet now more than ever. 

One of the most troubling aspects of the EO is its emphasis on regulating AI in the workforce out of concern for the technology displacing workers. Although there has been some uproar out of concern over AI destroying jobs, research shows that only 34% of Americans fear job displacement due to AI. 

And for good reason. 

Not only now but historically, concerns about new technologies displacing workers have been overblown. A Harvard paper published in 2013 predicted that by 2023, almost half of all American jobs would be replaced by AI. Clearly, the calculation has not come to pass. 

That’s because technology is a tool, not a threat. Frequently, implementing AI and technology like it allows humans to do more complex or human-facing jobs that AI can’t do or that people don’t want AI to do. 

AI is a transformative technology that has the potential to revolutionize various industries, from healthcare to finance and beyond. In a free market, competition drives innovation and efficiency, benefiting consumers and businesses. Restricting AI through excessive regulations and government oversight threatens this dynamic.

While the intention behind Biden’s EO on AI may be to ensure responsible development and safe use, the economic consequences could be dire. To maintain America’s leadership in AI and foster economic growth, lawmakers and leaders must avoid overregulation and unnecessary restrictions on this transformative technology. 

Instead, we should encourage innovation, protect intellectual property, and ensure that AI remains a powerful tool for driving economic prosperity and improving the lives of all Americans. 

In the fast-paced world of technology, the last thing we need is government interference that hampers progress.

d​Everything old is new again, and that’s turning out to be true in the case of a growing drumbeat to use antitrust tools to rein in big technology companies like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. But as a new policy report from the Pelican Institute points out, expanding the enforcement powers of antitrust agencies will do more harm than good—and an existing approach to protect consumers and producers, while encouraging innovation, is the better path forward.

​In their report “Antitrust & Enforcement: Letting Markets Work without Empowering Government,” Ted Bolema, Ph.D., J.D., Antitrust and Competition Fellow at the Innovators Network Foundation, and Vance Ginn, Ph.D., Chief Economist at the Pelican Institute, write that while the current frustrations with the size of large tech companies and censorship practices may be warranted, giving government enforcers and bureaucrats more power is not the answer. Instead, existing antitrust laws and the consumer welfare standard are still the best tools for protecting competition and consumers.

“For the last 50 years or so, scholars and courts have operated with a consensus about the goal of antitrust enforcement: the consumer welfare standard, which asks, ‘does the conduct in question make consumers better or worse off?’” Bolema and Ginn write. “Antitrust enforcement based on the consumer welfare standard protects one of the most important outcomes of the competitive market process and is worth preserving.”

Bolema and Ginn also note that calls to create new antitrust tools in response to conduct by “Big Tech” are misguided and will do far more to empower politicians and government bureaucrats than to prevent abusive conduct by technology companies.

“Expanding the enforcement powers of antitrust agencies — as many on the left and some on the right now wish to do — harkens back to an older ‘big is bad’ approach,” they write. “Rather than promoting competition, such a retrograde approach undercuts the competitive market process which provides more innovation, cheaper prices, and better-quality goods and services necessary for continued human flourishing.” Bolema and Ginn say that the consumer welfare standard—and putting power in the hands of consumers and producers— is the tried and true path to ensuring their best interests.

“As history has proven, empowering people in the marketplace rather than bureaucrats in government results in more efficient and effective outcomes and better supports liberty and prosperity,” Bolema and Ginn conclude.
You can read the full report, “Antitrust & Enforcement: Letting Markets Work without Empowering Government,” here.

Originally published by Pelican Institute. 

​In a desperate attempt to garner public favor before the midterms, President Biden set his sights on a new target to distract Americans from the pressing inflation problem: overdraft fees. Those low-percentage charges issued by banks to customers who use more money than they have in their accounts are apparently dire. 

Biden tweeted: “My Administration is making clear that charging Americans for a bounced check they deposit or an overdrafted bank account isn’t just wrong. It’s illegal.” In the official White House statement, he refers to these charges as “hidden fees,” discounting that bank account holders voluntarily sign off on the possibility of overdraft fees when they open an account. 

Unlike Biden, most people understand that what’s illegal is using someone else’s funds without permission, not issuing a penalty for doing so. 

Eliminating overdraft fees would disempower personal responsibility through government overreach and reduce the opportunity for some to open an account. Charges are a practical price for using an institution’s capital to support money mismanagement, and an underreaction, one could argue, to theft. 

As it turns out, nothing is free, including using the bank’s money when you’ve overspent yours. This is bad enough, as people have begun to think that scarce things are free, but Biden says he isn’t stopping at overdraft fees. 

He’s also going after what he’s branded as “surprise” fees, such as family seating fees issued by airlines, switch fees from internet and cable services, and service fees from concert and sporting venues. 

Notably, he claims that these charges are more menacing than typical add-on fees and that “firms should be free to charge more to add mushrooms to your pizza.” 

So, what’s more menacing about concert venues charging a service fee to cover operational costs than Pizza Hut charging for extra toppings so they can still turn a profit? There isn’t a difference. 

What’s malicious is that Biden wants to penalize businesses for trying to stay profitable in a recession that he’s prolongingby addressing “problems” like these instead of the 40-year high inflation that’s removing purchasing power from consumers and hurting families. 

Biden insists that these “junk fees” are undetectable by consumers and therefore unfair, and that this makes it impossible for people to compare the real costs between service providers. 

Those seeking to promote more government involvement in businesses,almost always undermine individual agency. The reality is that consumers can fight against fees, take their business elsewhere, or choose to pay them if they think it’s worth it. That’s what prices in a free-enterprise system of capitalism are all about: allowing people to improve their lives.

There are always trade-offs in life, and if the Biden administration successfully removes all these fees, we can expect to see another kind of trade-off instituted in its place. 

Nothing scarce is free. Every decision we make gives up something else, which economists call opportunity costs. Politicians too often think they can ignore this fact, but they do so at the peril of the people whom they serve.

This kind of overreach isn’t just insulting to Americans, it’s harmful to a free-market system that operates best with limited government. By convincing people that they’re powerless to manage their money or find the best service provider because they’re helpless against “big scary businesses,” the government creates enough public concern to justify stepping in where they have no business doing so. 

The economy is suffering enough under Biden’s overregulation, Congress’ overspending, and the Fed’s overprinting; the last thing it needs is another barrier to growth and organic competition.

Biden can quit trying to kid the American public that overdraft fees, which make up less than one percent of annual household spending, are the culprit for this lackluster economy. Instead, he should scrap his failed policies and promote free-market solutions that let people prosper.

Originally published at AIER

Everyone is feeling the pinch at the supermarket these days, as inflation—measured by the decline in the purchasing power of money for a basket of goods and services—recently hit a 40-year high. From eggs to milk, it is getting harder to bring home the bacon. Nowhere has that been more visible than in the prices for beef.

While inflation has contributed to the increase in the price of beef, the scary truth is there is a more nefarious reason for this: excess regulation.

The beef industry can be categorized into three sectors: cow-calf, stockyard, and slaughterhouse operations. Slaughterhouses have long been allowed to operate in what’s considered an oligopoly, as they’re heavily regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Federal Drug Administration (FDA).

A century ago, the Packers and Stockyards Act aimed to fix what was considered to be a market failure. It broke up the five major slaughterhouses controlling the beef industry. Yet today, only four slaughterhouses control 80% to 85% of America’s beef.

Now, the Senate Agriculture Committee has passed two bills that aim to do that exact thing the Packers and Stockyards Act was supposed to do. That begs the obvious question: Is more regulation really the answer to this bloody mess?

The proposed legislation of the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act would require slaughterhouses to buy more cattle on the cash market. And the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act would require the USDA to investigate and prosecute anti-competitive practices.

Cow-calf producers and stockyards are margin operators in one of the most complex markets in the world, and often fall victim to unpredictable forces like fluctuating demand, adverse weather, and disease. Of course, there are inherent risks in every market, and participants accept those risks.

The issue here is these operators can appear to be unfairly squeezed by slaughterhouses that seem to be manipulating prices. These practices include utilizing market strategies such as forward contracting and retaining ownership.

Forward contracting allows buyers and sellers to complete transactions months in advance to price in risk of the cash market. This strategy was intended to be a risk management tool for producers, giving them better control over their profit margins.

Secondly, slaughterhouses have taken advantage of the “retained ownership” principle by purchasing their own stockyard inventory. Cattle in stockyards are typically owned outright by the yard or owned by cow-calf producers that retain ownership and pay on a per-head or per-day rate.

So, in the event of unforeseen demand changes like, perhaps, a pandemic, inflation, drought, or mysterious cattle deaths, slaughterhouses can pull up their own inventory and mitigate any cost of buying cattle ready to be slaughtered at the cash market value.

Put plainly, the new legislation would limit slaughterhouse’s ability to slaughter cattle they own in hopes of forcing them to offer producers higher prices. But this can only go so far. And likewise, there’s only so much regulation that can be implemented to correct issues created by overregulation.

Threatening prosecution for market manipulation violations doesn’t break up the oligopolies because it addresses the wrong problem. Instead of trying to impose regulations to attempt to remedy the power disparity, eliminating the regulations that create barriers to entry in the first place would break up packer conglomerates naturally.

In short, the answer to eliminating unfair pricing schemes does not lie in implementing additional regulations to an already heavily regulated industry.

According to a 2022 report by the USDA, 900 slaughterhouses are federally inspected and 1,900 plants are not. The non-federally inspected plants that meet their states’ inspection standards can only sell or transport beef intrastate, barring them from being in direct competition with the Big Four. State inspections are required to meet criteria “at least equal to” federally inspected facilities.

One solution is to add competition by deregulating the inspection requirements, which would result in more competitors for the slaughterhouses, helping achieve what as the two proposed bills aim to do through market forces instead of government regulation. Continued regulation of a market at this level is identical to how many experts believe India and many African countries fell into complete food dependence on their government.

Congress’s signaled sympathy for cattlemen the past three years is probably all in vain—especially considering its legislation created the problem in the first place. Most importantly, consumers are about to feel even more pain at the meat counter come this fall.

Without substantial deregulation of the beef industry, sly slaughterhouse owners and confused senators may enjoy their prime rib dinner, while the rest of us settle for chicken—or worse, “plant-based proteins.”

Published at TPPF with Livia Lavender