Michael Giberson The NYTimes has a story on municipal WiFi, focused on Tapei, Tiawan. You get a sense of the story line from the title: “What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It?” That such a vast and reasonably priced wireless network has attracted so few users in an otherwise …
Michael Giberson Reforming an African electricity company requires tough love, persistence — and a little luck. Just ask Jean-David Bile, a civil engineer in the central African country of Cameroon. Bile runs AES Corp.’s electricity operation in Cameroon, a national grid that is chiefly powered by two large dams and was formerly fully owned by …
Michael Giberson Greg Mankiw explains why the increase in Fed watching could be a bad sign: Perhaps increased Fed watching is inevitable whenever we have a new Fed chairman, but it is nonetheless troubling. Fundamentally, Fed watching is a symptom of ambiguity in monetary policymaking. Fed insiders do not have significantly more data on the …
The Ideal Fed Chairman Would Give Boring Speeches Read More »
Michael Giberson Gunnar Birgisson, at Bracewell & Guiliani’s Energy Legal Blog, writes that customers “aren’t happy with the high and rising operating costs of organized electric markets, including Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators.” Birgisson points out two developments – one at PJM and the other at ISO-New England – illustrating the current state …
The Surprisingly High Cost of Regulated Monopoly Power Markets Read More »
Michael Giberson The Independent Institute has released it’s Open Letter on Immigration. The press release explains: As the House and Senate struggle toward compromise on an immigration bill, tensions and rhetoric are rising. The signers of the Open Letter on Immigration believe that this emotional debate taking place in Washington, D.C. and around the country …
Michael Giberson Progress. The Washington Post reports: Pepco Holdings Inc. is planning to install “smart meters” in 2,250 District homes as part of a $2 million pilot project to give Pepco more information about residential electricity usage and give homeowners greater ability to manage power consumption and curb monthly bills…. About half the residences in …
Michael Giberson Apparently, people elsewhere are actually watching this World Cup thing. Problems faced by retailers emerged yesterday in figures from retail analysts Footfall, who measure shopper numbers. These show the numbers visiting department stores last week fell by 24per cent compared to the week before. The figure was 3.2per cent down on the same …
Michael Giberson Virginia Postrel has an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on kidney donations and methods to encourage donations. Postrel favors legalizing financial incentives for live donors, though the idea of paying people to give up a kidney makes some folks squeamish. In fact, the National Kidney Foundation doesn’t even think people should talk …
Life on the Kidney Queue in the Land of the Market Read More »
Michael Giberson Wish you could tell the federal government just what was wrong (or right) with the state of competition in electricity markets? Here is your chance: Section 1815 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the Electric Energy Market Competition Task Force to conduct a study and analysis of competition within the wholesale …
Your Chance to Tell the Feds About Electric Market Competition Read More »
Michael Giberson Martin Feldstein has a proposal for Tradable Gasoline Rations (TGRs) that is so incredible that it deserves its own song. I’m at work trying to adapt “Tiggers Song” (from Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too) to the Feldstein particulars. Here’s how far I’ve made it, so far: The wonderful thing about TGRs Is …
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