Lynne Kiesling A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I had some fun making this promotional video for Students for Liberty: If you are a student and want to get more involved in creating a future in which our civil liberties still exist, economic freedom prevails, and we interact with others through peaceful … More Students: A Message from the Elderly — Join Students for Liberty!
Michael Giberson In other transportation alternatives news, Bright Automotive is folding after spending $15 over four years in an effort to secure a $450 million low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program was created in the Energy Independence and Security Act of … More Bright Automotive Can’t Get Federal Loan After Four Year Wait, Folds
AND: In other alternative transport news, Bright Automotive has folded. The company, launched at the Rocky Mountain Institute in January 2008 – within a month of the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 … More Ethanol Industry Struggles Through Regulatory Change
Michael Giberson In the inbox this afternoon, an emailed letter from my Congressman, Randy Neugebauer, who queries me (and I guess thousands of my neighbors as well) in this manner: Notice the congressman’s question, “do you believe we should be maximizing the development of our domestic oil and gas resources?” and the button labeled “Submit … More My Congressman Invites Me to Submit & Join*
Lynne Kiesling Have you been tempted to nudge? Persuaded by arguments in favor of default opt-ins for things like retirement savings plans? Or do you think behavioral economics is largely about committing the Nirvana fallacy by holding out for some perfection that is only possible in theory? Regardless of your familiarity with or persuasion by … More Forum on Behavioral Law and Economics
Michael Giberson The “green power paradox” grabs Hotelling by the ankles, turns him upside down, and shakes the change out of his pockets. Harold Hotelling’s classic article, “The Economics of Exhaustible Resources,” observes that the owner of an exhaustible resource stock always is making choices in the shadow of the future. If the owner produces … More Green Energy Paradox: Hotelling’s Exhaustible Resource and Consequences of Improving the Alternatives
Michael Giberson In the recent edition of The American magazine, the on-line journal of the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus write in defense of the President’s State of the Union address claim of federal government credit for the shale gas revolution. (For those of you not keeping score at home, (1) I commented … More The Federal Government’s Natural Gas R&d Breakthrough
Michael Giberson At the end of a comment on Windfall, a new documentary on the effects of wind power development on a community in upstate New York, Michael Munger pulls out the key Pigou quote. Pigou is relevant because the best possible case to be made for subsidizing wind power production involves correcting for the … More A.C. Pigou, Public Choice Economist, on the Use of Government
Michael Giberson The Brookings Institution’s Energy Security Initiative has been looking at the changing natural gas market including, among other things, potential issues surrounding LNG exports from the United States. Overall it looks like reasonable stuff. But one claim made in a recent Brooking report [pdf], highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article today, had … More Lng Exports, the View from the Brookings Institution
Lynne Kiesling In one of the most incredible pieces of fortuitous timing, after I recommended Richard Epstein’s Simple Rules for a Complex World in my post on our regulatory thickets, here’s a new video of Richard discussing this exact topic! A clear 22-minute discussion, well worth your time (and the time of any Congressional staffers … More New Video: Richard Epstein on Simple Rules