Michael Giberson The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is thinking about prediction markets and is inviting public comments on several questions as it attempts to sort out questions of public interest and appropriate regulatory treatment. (Now that I’ve mentioned that the CFTC is concerned with prediction markets, I’ll switch to the term the CFTC uses, …
Michael Giberson If you haven’t had your fill of ethanol-and-the-high-price-of-food-everywhere stories, today the Washington Post takes a look from the point of view of an Iowa farmer. Johnson is a one-person summary of how high corn prices are washing through the world of agriculture and climate change. Normally, he plants half of his 900 acres …
Lynne Kiesling By now you all have probably heard that Hillary Clinton and John McCain are proposing gasoline tax holidays this summer to take some budget pressure off of voters who drive a lot (c’mon, let’s be honest about the true audience of these proposals). Barack Obama does not support such a proposal. Criticizing this …
Piling on the Criticism of a Summer Gas Tax Holiday Read More »
Michael Giberson In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Lester Brown and Jonathan Lewis seem overly generous in their interpretation of the motivations for the now-obvious-failure of ethanol policy in the United States: Food-to-fuel mandates were created for the right reasons. The hope of using American-grown crops to fuel our cars seemed like a win-win-win …
Michael Giberson As I mentioned yesterday, I thought the Washington Post‘s story (“Decade of deregulation felt in climbing bills“) on various costs embedded in electric power bills was reasonably good. But the article covers several aspects of the overall picture without always being clear about the role played by the charges. From the economics point …
“Decade of Deregulation Felt in Climbing Bills”: Costs by Category Read More »
Michael Giberson The Washington Post today contains a story titled, “Decade of Deregulation Felt in Climbing Bills“: As they watch their bills climb, electricity customers in the Washington region might be surprised to know they are paying costs that have nothing to do with the rising price of fuel. Virginians are paying Dominion Power tens …
Michael Giberson Tom Weber said that neither word in the phrase “congestion pricing” is too upbeat, and strung together “the combination evokes thoughts of opening one’s wallet while suffering a sinus headache.” He suggests that the unappealing phrase may have had something to do with the failure of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan for …
EZ-Zone? Freeflow? Would Congestion Pricing by Another Name, Smell Sweeter? Read More »
Michael Giberson The Washington Post reports on their hometown industry – lobbying Congress – in a report on efforts by the wind and solar power industry to have tax credits renewed. Some of the quotes have me wondering whether John Whitehead has had any success with his “lost green jobs challenge.” Here, for example, is …
Michael Giberson At the Becker-Posner Blog, the authors tackle rising food prices and the latest Neo-Malthusians concerns that the world is reaching the limits of the earth to produce food. Curiously, both cite the thoroughly flogged old Neo-Malthusian book, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, but no current examples. Gary Becker writes to claim the Neo-Malthusians …
Becker and Posner on Food Prices and the New Neo-malthusians Read More »
Michael Giberson The New York Post explains political prediction markets in this 2 1/2 minute video clip featuring the Intrade exchange, among others, and including a interview with Yahoo! prediction market scientist David Pennock. See also Chris Masse’s comments on the piece at Midas Oracle and David Pennock’s comments at Oddhead Blog. ADDENDUM: Also on …
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