Anytime that Carl Pope of the Sierra Club and Ed Crane of the Cato Institute agree on something, it’s worth reading. Such is the case with this opinion piece in the Washington Post today. … More Pope And Crane On The Energy Bill
Also courtesy of Slashdot, this New York Times article (registration required) describes the flywheels that the NY Port Authority has installed in the subway to collect and use the energy given off when subway trains brake. What a win-win — their energy bills go down, and subway stations are less hot! … More How Cool Is This?
Courtesy of Slashdot, this Business Week article discusses the prospects and hurdles for wireless, “wi-fi” networks. My favorite quote: Adds Ramesh Rao, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology: “History tells us that we cannot rely on the FCC’s ability to anticipate the future and write rules to allow progress.” In the … More A Wireless Future? … More A Wireless Future?
As Janis Ian wrote in an article on her website, the internet and music downloads can and do benefit artists. This is a well-researched and well-written article. Thanks to my husband for forwarding it to me. UPDATE: I thought that Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit had mentioned this article before, and he did, here, in reference … More Janis Ian Gets It; Why Doesn’t The Riaa? … More Janis Ian Gets It; Why Doesn’t The Riaa?
We’re drivin’, there’s political uncertainty in the Middle East, and it’s almost August, so U.S. inventories are being depleted in a typical seasonal pattern. Thus, as this Bloomberg News article reports, crude prices have gone up. But they have not gone up much, because the continuing economic malaise is countering the price-increasing factors mentioned above. … More Crude Oil Update … More Crude Oil Update
Here and here are two articles from Wired that are good complements to Dan Gillmor’s article referenced below. Not only would this bill have unintended consequences, as the first article discusses, the large media companies would not have to stop their P2P music distribution under this bill. … More More On Hollywood Hacking
This Financial Times article analyzes Dynegy’s recent sale of a pipeline it acquired from Enron to bolster its balance sheet and reduce its debt. Dynegy’s stock price increased accordingly yesterday. The first paragraph of the article says it well: When Dynegy snatched the Northern Natural Gas pipeline company from a collapsing Enron for $1.5bn, it … More Schumpeter’s Perennial Gale Of Creative Destruction … More Schumpeter’s Perennial Gale Of Creative Destruction
I don’t know whether or not Perot Systems actually did share confidential information about the structure and design of the California electricity market, but as this Financial Times article indicates, what matters is what investors believe, and how they act on those beliefs. As the article says, investors are not convinced by the arguments that … More How Markets Discipline Companies … More How Markets Discipline Companies