Lynne Kiesling Even those unaffected by this economic downturn are changing their consumption behavior, a pattern seen in prior economic downturns. This New York Times article by Alex Williams gives some details on the forms that these adjustments are taking among the wealthy: “The era of conspicuous consumption, at least for the foreseeable future, has …
Lynne Kiesling Not being a macroeconomist I have little insight to contribute, but I do find October’s 2.8% decline in the producer price index quite remarkable. Not only is this the largest decline on record, it is also larger than had been forecast for October. And, as the Bloomberg article linked above notes, the UK …
Lynne Kiesling For the past 30 years the U.S. auto industry has been like your alcoholic Uncle Bob: his self-destructive habits seem beneficial to him, despite the harm they cause him and the pain they inflict on his family and friends. You want to help him, but don’t know the best way to do so, …
Lynne Kiesling Opinions and analyses on recycling abound, from “it reduces our resource use and conserves landfill capacity” to “processing recycling uses more energy than not, and is therefore wasteful and inefficient”. Of course there’s some truth in these opposing views, and a case-by-case analysis is usually necessary to determine, on balance, the net effect …
Lynne Kiesling Chris Carey’s work at Bailout Sleuth is supremely important for holding the federal government accountable for its decisions and actions with respect to their financial bailout plans. He’s carrying our water. Especially after yesterday’s change of federal strategy, much commented on elsewhere. I think Katharine Mangu-Ward sums it up pretty well at Reason …
If You Aren’t Reading Bailout Sleuth Daily, You Should Read More »
Lynne Kiesling [Yes, I am truly in real-world issue avoidance mode …] I love the occasional Wired articles on technology history, and this one is near and dear to my heart … on 11 November 1856, Henry Bessemer received a U.S. patent for his steel production technology. The article also gives appropriate credit to American …
This Week in 1856: Bessemer Becomes Man of Steel Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Several commentaries over the past few days have discussed the intersection of an Obama administration and entrepreneurship. One that does so directly is Bret Swanson’s opinion piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, which casts President-elect Obama as an entrepreneur himself. Importantly, and correctly in my opinion, Swanson highlights the emergent, bottom-up nature of …
Different Perspectives on Entrepreneurship Under an Obama Administration Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The folks at reason do us a service, albeit a sobering and disturbing one, by tallying up all of the bailout promises as of Friday. The total to date: Rough total: $2,063,800,000,000 That’s a little over $6,800 for every man, woman, and child, or just under $15,000 for each of America’s 140 million …
Michael Giberson Recently Southwestern Public Service (SPS), a local utility affiliated with Xcel Energy, issued two RFPs seeking wind power and dispatchable power resources. Among the language in both RFPs, an assertion that in evaluating the proposals “SPS seeks to diversify and minimize the development risk in its selected portfolio.” But, ideally, they should aim …
Financial Theories Can Aid in Improving a Utility’s Fuel Mix Diversity Read More »
Michael Giberson Ray Fisman writes in Slate about recent research showing stock price movements before CIA-sponsored political coups that suggest insiders in the intelligence community were trading on classified information: A recent study by economists Arindrajit Dube, Ethan Kaplan, and Suresh Naidu argues that those in on the planning process also profited handsomely. By tracking …
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