Michael Giberson In response to James Kwak’s post on price gouging and the corrupting effects of Econ 101, blogger R.A. at The Economist Free Exchange blog writes “In praise of Econ 101“: I’m sensitive to concerns about the downsides of inequality. And I’ve certainly met my share of Econ 101 robots, who can’t talk beyond …
Michael Giberson OPEC was founded on September 14, 1960, in Baghdad, Iraq by five oil-exporting countries that decided to join forces to safeguard their legitimate rights and exercise control over their petroleum resources after years of manipulation. From the OPEC “Secretary General’s Message” on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the organization. The slogan …
Michael Giberson Last I checked, James Kwak had 147 comments on his blog post on price gouging and the corrupting influence of Econ 101. Other bloggers have jumped into the fray: Adam Ozimek at Modeled Behavior, the Undergraduate at Observations of a Naive Undergraduate, and David Beckworth at Macro and Other Market Musings. Quite a …
Price Gouging, Ethics, Markets, and the Corrupting Influence of Econ 101 Read More »
Michael Giberson Cities have taxpayers and monopoly utility companies have ratepayers. When the city owns the utility, the taxpayers are – more or less – the same group of people as the ratepayers. In this case, does it matter which group pays how much for what? Should, for example, the municipal utility buy vehicles for …
Taxpayers, Ratepayers, City Government, Municipal Utilities Read More »
Michael Giberson [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYGCpGzFWh0] From the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Kids Pages, an earnest warning – accompanying the lyrics to the song Big Rock Candy Mountain – not to be lead astray by the wild (and extremely unhealthy!) images conjured up by the songwriter Harry “Haywire Mac” McClintock: IMPORTANT REMINDERS ABOUT THE LYRICS: Mr. McClintock’s …
The Fictional (And Extremely Unhealthy!) Big Rock Candy Mountain Read More »
Michael Giberson Last week the Lubbock city council approved a plan to direct municipal utility Lubbock Power and Light to pay the cost of operating and maintaining the city’s street lights (see earlier post). This week the municipal utility fights back: “LP&L ready to fight city on street light money.” The Lubbock Power and Light …
Michael Giberson A story by Purva Patel in the Houston Chronicle does a reasonably good job explaining the upcoming shift from a zonal to a nodal market design for the ERCOT market in Texas. It is a complicated matter and hard to convey to non-specialist readers. (In fact, even some specialists appear confused about parts …
Nodal Pricing Coming to Texas Wholesale Power Market Read More »
Michael Giberson BP released the report of its internal investigation into the drilling accident in the Gulf of Mexico. Also available is a half-hour video explanation. The Financial Times energysource blog has identified some of the key points from the report and a response from Greenpeace as well: BP oil spill report: “No single factor” to …
BP’s “Deepwater Horizon: Accident Investigation Report” Read More »
Michael Giberson From Politics on the Hudson: Kaplowitz takes on Big Oil, says stronger ban on zone gasoline pricing could create a $1.3 billion “tax break” for New Yorkers. At a news conference today at 12:30 at the Shell Station in Bedford on the corner of Rt. 22 and Rt. 172, State Senate candidate Mike …
New York Assembly Candidate Proposes to *really* Ban Zone Pricing This Time Read More »
Michael Giberson Tom Konrad explains, “When it Makes Sense to Worry About Jevons Paradox, and When it Doesn’t.” Konrad highlights the critical point – whether demand for the good in question is elastic or inelastic – and suggests that the demand for electric power is relatively inelastic and therefore the demand for lighting is inelastic, hence …
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