Lynne Kiesling Tim Worstall alerts us to a manifestation of government distortion of decision-making in Australia: a glut of grapes has pushed down grape and wine prices, and small producers are in danger of going out of business. The Telegraph article that Tim cites says that The problem is so severe that the industry said …
Wine Bankruptcies in Australia: More Ill-advised Government Policy Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on a manifestation of the plenitude of capitalism: Wal-Mart is selling customized World Cup gear in the various countries where it operates around the world (US, Germany, England, Mexico, for example). My favorite: Garden gnomes in England kit. If that’s not culture-specific marketing, I don’t know …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released the draft Report to Congress on Competition in the Wholesale and Retail Markets for Electric Energy on behalf of the Electric Energy Market Competition Task Force. This report, required by Section 1815 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, provides an overview and summarizes the progress …
Draft Report to Congress on Wholesale and Retail Competition in Electricity Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Matthew Stewart, philosopher-turned management consultant-turned philosophy writer, has an essay in the Atlantic on “management science” (subscription required) that is amusing and interesting. [full text available here] Stewart goes through the origins of scientific management, its justifiable place in the dustbin of ideas (although it certainly scared the bejeesus out of Josef Schumpeter, …
Lynne Kiesling Here’s an amusing cultural amalgamation: I am getting ready for triathlon season, and so am thumbing through the Tri Zone catalog that just appeared in my mailbox. When you do tris that are Olympic or longer, you want energy and hydration close to hand while you’re on the bike. Here’s a solution: the …
Lynne Kiesling Caught my eye on Friday, but I got distracted: Kerry Howley’s Hit & Run post on pending regulations outlawing the use of glass in Scottish pubs. How ridiculous is that? Making everyone drink out of crappy glasses just because a few morons refuse to control the exercise of their tempers (or their livers, …
Lynne Kiesling Martin Feldstein has a column in today’s WSJ (subscription required) in which he recommends that the government issue tradeable gasoline rights (TGRs) instead of either raising CAFE standards or imposing a gasoline tax. In a system of tradeable gasoline rights, the government would give each adult a TGR debit card. The gasoline pumps …
Martin Feldstein in Wsj on “Tradeable Gasoline Rights” Read More »
Lynne Kiesling An entire month of international football (ok, soccer) begins on Friday! Skip Sauer kindly provides the television schedule in the U.S., which I also went out of my way to find yesterday. I’m not optimistic about Team USA this year, particularly given the group they’ve drawn. As usual, I’m cheering for England as …
Lynne Kiesling This BBC article from last Wednesday provides some good information about methanol fuel cell-powered laptops. The technology promises to supplement or replace today’s batteries in laptops. Instead of storing power, fuel cells generate electricity by breaking down methanol via an electrochemical process. The cells can be recharged by topping them up with methanol …
Fuel Cell Laptops Still Clunky, But Getting There Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I had been aware of the Seattle Public School District’s recent attempt to define “institutional racism” because of Eugene Volokh’s post a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t broach the subject here because I didn’t have anything to add other than to observe that it’s disturbing to have some institutional imposition of …
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