Eric Boehm | The Libertarian Institute

Judge Confirms: Oregon Engineer Has a First Amendment Right to Call Himself an Engineer

by Eric Boehm | Jan 6, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

A federal judge has ruled that the Oregon Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying violated the First Amendment when it tried to fine Mats Järlström—an Oregonian with a degree in engineering and years of experience in the field—for describing himself as "an engineer." In a ruling issued Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman issued a permanent injunction against the board's enforcement of the relevant rules, which had included trying to fine Järlström $500 for describing himself as an engineer in a non-professional context. Järlström got on the board's bad side...

D.C. City Council Will Vote to Ban Some Airbnb Rentals Today

by Eric Boehm | Oct 3, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

A longtime resident of the Hillcrest neighborhood in Washington, D.C., Rashida Mims wonders why hotel lobbyists are taking such an interest in her short-term rental income. After all, there are no hotels in Hillcrest, a roughly mile-wide triangle filled with tangles of residential streets along the far southeast edge of the nation's capital. Mims makes a few thousand dollars off her Airbnb rentals each year, hardly enough to threaten the bottom lines of the hotels chains that are thriving in Washington. Those guests help Mims, who is retired, live a little more comfortably and bring an...

No, Repealing the Volcker Rule Won't Cause an Economic Collapse

by Eric Boehm | May 31, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a series of changes to Obama-era banking regulations intended to prevent banks from taking unnecessary risks with their clients' money. The move will free smaller financial institutions from onerous federal rules and allow regulators to focus their attention on bigger banks that take greater risks. The changes to the so-called Volcker Rule—named for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who suggested the basic premise behind what eventually become a 700-plus page regulation included as part of the Dodd-Frank Act—were quickly criticized for...

Firefighter Earned $300K in Overtime by Working More Hours Than Actually Exist

by Eric Boehm | May 21, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics

Los Angeles firefighter Donn Thompson had a busy year in 2017. If his pay stubs are to be believed, he literally never stopped working. Data obtained by Transparent California, a project of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, show that Thompson pulled down $300,000 in overtime pay during 2017, on top of his $92,000 salary. Over the past four years, Thompson has earned more than $1 million in overtime, according to Transparent California's database. Thompson's ability to work so many hours "boggles the mind," says Robert Fellner, director of research at the institute. To earn that much in...

This Taco Bell Can't Get a Liquor License Because City Officials Don't Like Taco Bell

by Eric Boehm | May 15, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

Officials in a Michigan suburb have denied a liquor license to a local business simply because they don't like Taco Bell. Other restaurants along Main Street in downtown Royal Oak have been granted permission to serve alcohol. But the city council voted 5–2 this week to deny a similar license to a new Taco Bell Cantina. The Taco Bell Cantina concept is something the fast food chain is slowly rolling out in some parts of the country, offering an extended menu and alcohol sales. The location in Royal Oak opened in January and wanted to sell frozen margaritas and beer, according to the Detroit...

Shocker! American Steel Prices Spiked in April.

by Eric Boehm | Apr 25, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

In the days and weeks after President Donald Trump slapped 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, it was widely reported that American steel-consuming companies were bracing for higher prices. Some said they were already seeing those higher prices reflected in contracts to purchase steel from suppliers, but no one was sure how significant those price increases would turn out to be. Now, a little more than six weeks since the tariff announcement, we have a better picture of the consequences of Trump's trade policy. It looks like this: This chart—published by SteelBenchmarker, a...