Michael Giberson Astonishing. What Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times, that is. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people … it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies… Astonishing, because while …
Thomas Friedman Wants to Make the Policy Trains Run on Time Read More »
Michael Giberson So I was quietly reading about Austin, Texas electric power developments in the Austin American-Statesman (“Mueller becoming a lab for energy: Research plans, neighbors’ efforts converging“) when I stumbled across a remark of such – I don’t know what to call it – irony? Orwellian newspeak? Not quite sure what to say, so …
Don’t Worry, the City Council Will Plusgood Monitor Big Brother to Prevent Abuse Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Over the past week there’s been an interesting online conversation with the participants discussing one of the eternal tautological conundrums: why does politics attract power-hungry narcissists? Matt Yglesias kicked it off with what I think is a pretty naive query about the degree of cynicism and immorality in politics. Such cynicism and immorality …
Eternal Truths About Those Who Are Attracted to Politics Read More »
Michael Giberson At Rigzone: Governments should consider their strategic petroleum reserves a part of their arsenal to limit speculation in the oil market, according to a report issued Thursday by Rice University’s James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy. If the policy is to sell SPR oil into the market when prices get “too high” …
Should the Federal Government Use the Spr to Counter Speculators? Read More »
Michael Giberson Philip Tetlock – the expert on political expertise – reviews three books on political forecasting for The National Interest, but the problem of selecting a good forecast equally applies in commerce: Reading these three books, it is easy to feel like a frustrated shopper wandering aimlessly down the forecasting aisle in the supermarket …
Michael Giberson In the news, reports of a “cash for clunkers” program for major appliances: USA Today: Appliances get their own recycled clunkers programs; Business Week: Latest in Stimulus: ‘Cash for Refrigerators’; Associated Press: Meltdown 101: Government cash for green appliances. From Business Week: Beginning late this fall, the program authorizes rebates of $50 to …
Appliance Sales to Get ‘cash for Clunkers’ Boost? Read More »
Michael Giberson Energy consultant Michael Lynch, appearing in the New York Times, says peak oilers don’t know the oil business. “Peak Oil Is a Waste of Energy.” NRG Energy CEO David Crane, in the Washington Post, asserts we need a national energy plan with a regional focus: solar for the Southwest, wind for the Great …
Michael Giberson David Schoenbrod and Richard B. Stewart explain why the Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” bill isn’t, fundamentally, a market-based approach to regulating greenhouse gasses: As a candidate for president in April 2008, Barack Obama told Fox News that “a cap-and-trade system is a smarter way of controlling pollution” than “top-down” regulation. He was right. With cap …
Highly Recommended Read on Waxman-markey: The Cap-and-trade Bait and Switch Read More »
Michael Giberson Robert Rapier draws attention to a Los Angeles Times story on a home-based ethanol system. Here are the first two lines from the story: It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from old beer, leftover wine and other waste products and use it to …
If the E-fuel Microfueler Sounds Too Good to Be True… Read More »
Michael Giberson News reports indicate that the federal government is winding up “Cash for Clunkers” early next week on the expectation that claims will exhaust the $3 billion committed to the program. Just noticed this comment by Robert Barro of two weeks back (HT to Paul Walker/Anti-Dismal): The most ludicrous (though, fortunately, small) intervention thus …
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