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

Trump as King Cnut

King Cnut (Canute) famously ordered the incoming tide to stop. It was an exercise in futility (to be fair, Cnut knew this and staged the event to prove that his royal power was worthless compared to the power of God). Donald Trump is the modern King Cnut, pretending to order away climate change. Trump, however, […]

Trump administration says scientists are wrong about the dangers of ‘climate change'”

Back to the future past: “Since Trump took office in January 2025, U.S. emissions have increased 1.9% largely because of the renewed use of coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. The Environmental Protection Agency revoked the scientific finding that has been the basis for regulating emissions from cars and power plants since 2009.”  Climate […]

Pollution Costs vs Benefits of Clean Air

It has been a while since I have seen a rather good presentation analysis on how benefits gain out way the costs of pollution. In its brevity the analysis by Prof. McCabe offers up an excellent cost analysis which makes one wonder why? Why has the nation delayed in doing this if there is such […]

Congress and Administration Move Forward on Oil & Gas Leasing

A move by the Trump administration is unneeded as yield is less than the cost of producing. Taxpayers will be paying for a government boondoggle. “two lease sales generated less than one percent of the $905 million the taxpayers were promised.” Reiterating what was going on in 2017, stopped in 2020 (Biden), and back again in 2024 […]

Book Review: “The Edge of the World”

Review: The Edge of the World – The one-handed economist I picked up this 2014 book by Michael Pye due to my recent interest in histories of Europe (my new “homeland”), and I found it fascinating. The subtitle (A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe) shows why it may be interesting to me, […]

“We control our own destiny here, but we’re not controlling it right now”

“Southwest’s disappearing precipitation is also due to human-driven climate change,” University of Michigan News To end the Colorado River Basin’s megadrought, ‘we just need to stop climate change,’ a U-M expert says. ‘We know how to stop it and it’s not too late to stop it.’ Like much of the southwestern U.S., the Colorado River […]

Why I don’t own an EV

I live in Rhode Island. Ca. 90% of electricity in Rhode Island is generated by natural gas. So if you re-charge your EV in Rhode Island, you’re fueling your car with natural gas. Some folks have pointed out that EVs are about twice as efficient as ICE vehicles. That is, they waste about half the […]

Europe’s water reserves

I would have thought the Unted States would be the first to have issues. We are not careful with our usage or pollution runoff. United States Citizens take fresh water for granted and abuse the usage of it. I have found Europeans to be more careful in their usage of fresh water and the pollution […]

Brief Rundown on EVs, etc. v Gasoline Powered Vehicles

Nothing too technical, just some conversation and points. It has been found or reported, hybrid vehicles incur fewer issues and problems than gasoline vehicles. On the other side of the spectrum, fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) can have more issues. Let’s face it, the technology is still new and manufacturing and research in the US are […]

Dry Sicily

Review: Dry Sicily – The One-Handed Economist The PR people for this documentary asked me if I wanted to screen it, but they wanted to charge a fee (quite reasonable for any documentary, given non-trivial costs). When I said LUC had no funds, they came back with an “offer I couldn’t refuse”: Apparently your work […]