Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Digging out

With two feet of snow and 40-50 mph gusts of wind yesterday and wind chill temps of -15 degrees F.,, it was quite a day this Jan. 29. I am steadily working on digging out of the snow this night and into Sunday but did not lose power nor heat so feel fortunate. I think […]

OPEC’s January Oil Market Report

RJS: Focus on Fracking December global oil shortage was 1,240,000 barrels per day as OPEC output was 625,000 barrels per day short of quota; global oil shortage for 2021 was 1,446,300 barrels of oil per day. Tuesday of this week saw the release of OPEC’s January Oil Market Report, which includes OPEC & global oil data […]

Farm in a Square, Harvest in a Circle

All throughout the Midwest, Plains, pretty much anywhere that doesn’t get adequate rain you can look on Google maps and see square fields with bright green circles in the middle. These are pivot fields that are irrigated from aquifers below. The corners of those fields are usually left barren. No, these are not the corners […]

Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment

Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment  Incoming GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has just announced his choice for Secretary of Natural Resources, Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist, who served as Trump’s EPA director in the latter part of his term. He has an utterly abysmal environmental record, so bad I cannot think […]

One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm

One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm, Michael Smith, Agricultural Economist and Farmer In my search to find sustainable sources of organic material to turn into viable soil modification vectors, I had been struggling to source material to add to the Padina sands that are in abundance in our lands. See, in late […]

Oil Prices Up 55% and Natural Gas Prices Up 47%

Oil prices rose 55% in 2021, the most since 2009, while natural gas prices rose 47%, the most since 2016, Focus on Fracking, RJS Oil prices rose for a second week after the initial Omicron selloff, as oil traders and most everyone else have become convinced that Omicron poses little risk to oil demand . […]

The Second and Last Death of Capitalism

—We study history in order to better understand what is going on now, to be better able to look into the future. — The Great Depression was a manifestation of the utter and complete failure of capitalism. Social Security, unemployment, and Welfare were implicit admissions of this failure. Capitalism had spectacularly failed to provide for […]

Disposable time as a common-pool resource IX — Disposable time as a model for environmental governance

Disposable time as a common-pool resource IX — Disposable time as a model for environmental governance Not only could disposable time be regarded as a common-pool resource similar to other common-pool resources, but it could stand as the single most far-reaching and democratically vital model of a common-pool resource. Donald Stabile alluded to something in […]

More Partsanization Of The Environment

More Partsanization Of The Environment  The Environmental Protection Agency was founded during the presidency of Republican Richard Nixon, if perhaps with some lack of enthusiasm. The first national cap and trade (or “tradable emissions permits”) system, for SO2, was instituted during the presidency of Republican George H.W. Bush. In 2008, Republican John McCain had an […]

Cheap trips to the lakes

Cheap trips to the lakes We are experiencing climate change with a vengeance in British Columbia. For the past four summers, we have had horrific wildfires that send smoke all the way from the interior to the west coast of Vancouver Island. Last summer, we had a record-breaking “heat dome” that killed over 600 people […]