Not to be too much of a megaphone for the Institute for Justice, but the “merry band of litigators” has struck again, this time going after the rigid rules stopping Virginians from finding inner peace.  It seems that in the fair commonwealth, you need a permit to teach yoga, which process entails paying $2500 and getting your “curriculum” approved by state bureaucrats, as well as other barriers to entry. For more details, see IJ’s case page and read this editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Also, check out IJ’s video:

Virginia Messes With Yoga Instructors’ Chi is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

With the House Financial Services Committee moving forward with a bill to increase the regulation of our consumer credit markets, particularly our mortgage market, it is worth asking the question:  what’s the best protection for consumers, regulation or competition?

Let’s take the example of mortgage brokers.  They’ve often been targeted as one  of the causes of the crisis.  The story goes that they just made the loans and passed it along to the lenders and/or Wall Street and so, didn’t care about the quality of the loan.

The response of government, first at the state then the federal level, has been to subject mortgage brokers to increased oversight and licensing, with the intent to keep the “bad actors” out of the marketplace.  How well did this all work out?

According to Professor Morris Kleiner and Minn Fed Economist Richard Todd, not exactly the way you’d want.  What the economists found was that tighter regulation on who can become a mortgage broker is actually associated ”with higher broker earnings, fewer brokers, fewer subprime mortgages, higher foreclosure rates, and a greater percentage of high-interest-rate mortgages.”

It seems the barrier to entry created by these licensing requirements reduced competition in a manner that caused far more harm to consumer than any protections provided by increasing the “quality” of mortgage brokers.

Regulation and Competition among Mortgage Brokers is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Libertarians often disagree with their non-libby friends about the need for government-mandated occupational licensing in fields like medicine. The idea behind such licensing is that the government has a compelling interest in protecting citizens and that licensing actually achieves that end. The evidence is not as cut and dried on the latter point as many people assume, but at least there’s enough meat there to warrant a discussion.

Whatever you think about occupational licensing in the context of medicine, there’s one field where the government’s “compelling interest” — and ability to successfully execute on it – is particularly hard to defend: interior design.

In three U.S. states, government officials are, right now, “protecting” their citizens from bad Feng Shui, misguided uses of prints with plaids, gauche arrangements of bric-a-brac, and other crimes against fabulosity. No one in Florida, for instance, can call himself an interior designer lest he receives the official imprimatur of the state. The Institute for Justice has filed suit to overturn the licensing requirement. Imagine the harm to Floridians if they succeed….

No. I can’t imagine any either.

In this field, more than any other, the real reason for most occupational licensing becomes apparent: cartelization to protect incumbent businesses from competition.

UPDATE: Check out this video by ReasonTV about the interior design license laws around the country.

A Compelling Government Interest in… Fabulous Drapes! is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog