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 »
Lynne Kiesling One great thing about being on holiday out of the country is that I have blissfully been spared the annoying, politicized, and frequently wrong-headed and vapid health care policy discussions and media coverage thereof. I read John Mackey’s WSJ editorial with his health care policy recommendations, the top three of which being: •?Equalize …
Health Care Economics Tidbits: Mackey, New York Times, Horwitz Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Last February I was thrilled to be invited to an economics bloggers forum at the Kauffman Foundation, organized by Tim Kane (who contributes to the Kauffman blog Growthology). As part of the forum the Kauffman folks recorded video interviews with each of us for their library. They have now released a video from …
Lynne Kiesling I am enjoying my Stockholm visit very much, despite the sticker shock while shopping and dining. The discussions at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting are interesting and thought-provoking, including quite a bit of discussion of the incentive problems, and the moral/ethical problems, of the “Swedish welfare state” model. The Swedish model of health …
Don’t Follow the Swedish Health Care Model; Follow the Swedish Retail Electricity Model Read More »
Lynne Kiesling A reading recommendation, especially for those of you in the mid-Atlantic interested in business and energy commentary: Jay Hancock’s blog at the Baltimore Sun. Jay has lots of trenchant insights into local and national business and economic events.
Lynne Kiesling I am on a plane all day today, flying to England for a few days of holiday before proceeding to Stockholm for the Mont Pelerin Society annual meeting. My main activity for the flight is to work on my course prep for my new freshman seminar this fall, entitled “Adam Smith and the …
Lynne Kiesling I really appreciated this Wall Street Journal article on how Whole Foods is adapting its corporate strategy to the current economic downturn. Their direction: shift away from a gourmet/”Whole Paycheck” focus and toward “healthy eating”. Founder and CEO John Mackey sees this adaptation as a movement in focus back toward his original commercial …
Evolving Competition: Whole Foods, Costco, Trader Joe’s Read More »
Lynne Kiesling In a Cnet Green Tech article, Martin LaMonica points to some developments in an area that I’ve been pushing on for years: the potential consumer value creation from bundling residential electricity service with home security services. The potential for such bundling is one example of why I argue so emphatically for retail competition: …
Home Energy Management and Home Security Product Bundling Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’ve had several conversations with people my age and younger who work in the electricity end-use technology space in which we use a particular shorthand for the change in culture and mindset that we want to see happen in the retail electricity industry: “there’s an app for that.” In our conversations it’s shorthand …
Lynne Kiesling Last week Newsweek had an article on smart grid investments and projects that provides a good overview, focusing on the newly-funded Department of Energy demonstration projects. Many of you will already know more about these than the details provide in the article, but it’s a good overview if you don’t.
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