Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.

In June of 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put forward a proposal to regulate the short-term loan industry. The Small Dollar Lending Rule seeks to “alleviate and solve” for the “apparent weaknesses” of the current rates and short-term lenders by requiring “lenders to assess and verify a borrower’s income, housing costs, and credit and legal obligations.”

A new international trade agreement has hit a stumbling block. Against the background of a decades long deadlock of the WTO negotiations, and the controversies surrounding the more recent Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Walloon region in Belgium has decided to ‘veto’ the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) between EU and Canada. As any decisions regarding the European Common Market require a unanimous vote of regional representatives, this veto appears insurmountable.

In 1868, a young Henry George wrote an editorial on the nearly completed Pacific Railroad that was soon to connect his state of California with the rest of the country. This editorial, “What the Railroad Will Bring Us,” acknowledged the progress that railroads would signify in the industrializing economy of the Gilded Age, but George saw this as a boon only for the privileged few.

Bob Tollison died unexpectedly today at the age of 74. While many readers of mises.org may not be familiar with him, he was one of the most inventive, prolific, and impactful scholars of our generation. As the current leader of the public choice school his wide-ranging contributions certainly qualify him as a Potential Nobel prize winning economist. He was an internationally recognized authority on topics such as rent seeking political behavior and anti-trust economics.

Late last week, Governor Cuomo signed legislation which made his position on the sharing economy painfully clear to New York City residents. Capitulating to the whims of the traditional hotel industry, Cuomo made history by adopting the nation’s strictest home sharing regulations, essentially banning the homesharing industry from operating within city limits.

The New York City hotel industry has experienced record declines over the last few years, which directly correlates to the rise in popularity of sites like Airbnb.

When US dairy farmers worked together to reduce herd numbers — in order to limit supply and boost prices — this was apparently seen as a dangerous and deceptive move. Recently, dairy cooperatives (producers who work together and serve as middlemen between the farms and processors of dairy products) settled a class-action lawsuit for $52 million for working to reduce dairy cattle numbers, which would limit the supply of milk products.

With another Sunday come and gone, the sports media has noticed that ratings for NFL football are slumping. This is a problem not just for the NFL but for TV stations who have long depended on live sports — and NFL games in particular — as something to hang over the heads of viewers who are increasingly abandoning cable and satellite TV in favor of services like Netflix.

Today is Ralph Raico’s eightieth birthday. He is the greatest living historian of classical liberalism and a leading libertarian theorist. He was a member of Murray Rothbard’s legendary Circle Bastiat and one of Murray’s closest friends. Ralph has been my friend for more than thirty-five years, and his learning, analytical abilities, and devotion to liberty have always inspired me. He is also extremely funny and a master of the sarcastic put-down.