Lynne Kiesling The long-anticipated collapse of the U.S. Postal Service is nigh, according to this very detailed Business Week article, and none of you will be surprised to learn that political stalemates are part of the story. The convergence of two parts of my world: whisky to energy in Scotland! Contracts have been signed in …
Lynne Kiesling I wasn’t around KP a lot last week because I was spending a lot of time following the Patriot Act extension debacle and contacting my Congressional representatives to urge them to vote against it (of my so-called representatives, only Senator Durbin did so; I think this is the first time he and I …
Civil Liberties and Economics: More Than Just Free Markets Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As a coda to Mike’s post yesterday regarding the CRS study of the effects of removing oil subsidies on gasoline prices, here’s Ron Bailey at Reason reminding us that ethanol subsidies are almost triple those to the oil companies, and with little to show either environmentally, economically, or energetically. Courtesy of Dr. Vino, …
Things That Caught My Eye: Subsidies, Wine, Leds, Dismal Economists Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’ll be interested to see how the political, economic, and environmental consequences of this weekend’s new carbon approach in the UK unfolds; according to the Guardian (and the too-much BBC that I listen to): Cabinet ministers have agreed a far-reaching, legally binding “green deal” that will commit the UK to two decades of …
Lynne Kiesling I think the past 18 months have been disappointing for consumer-centric smart grid proponents and companies. In January 2010 the incisive Katie Fehrenbacher pronounced 2010 the year in which the consumer would be the king of home energy management, and this pronouncement has not come to fruition. I’ve been formulating some ideas about …
Will Android@Home Help Make Smart Grid More Consumer-Centric? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Since we’re riffing off of Hayek today, I’ll take one of his most pithy and insightful quotes, from The Fatal Conceit: The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. I want to use that quote to tee up a …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday was F.A. Hayek’s 112th birthday, and as Hayek’s work inspired the name of this blog, and continues to inspire my work every day, I encourage you all to celebrate this anniversary by reading (or re-reading, I hope!) his seminal Use of Knowledge in Society (1945): The peculiar character of the problem of …
Lynne Kiesling Over the past six months the TSA has started using whole-body imaging scanners as primary screening devices without explicit Congressional authorization. Congress has only authorized the TSA’s privacy officer to solicit public comment and publish a privacy impact statement (according to EPIC’s lawsuit), and their authorization of TSA practices is implicit in their …
Homeland Security: Eroding Your Human Rights Without Any Benefit-cost Analysis Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Today the Energy Information Administration released the 2011 Annual Energy Outlook (link is to executive summary). This year’s outlook explores scenarios that include updated forecasts of shale gas production, which have changed considerably since last year’s outlook, as KP readers know due to Mike’s excellent analyses. Another aspect of the analysis that will …
Lynne Kiesling It shouldn’t surprise you to find, given my recent working paper on Adam Smith, sympathy, and mirror neurons that I am an avid reader of neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer. His post today riffs off of President Obama’s birth certificate to muse on voter ignorance. In discussing some research on the subject, he observes …
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