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

Japan May Have Reached Point 7

I give up. It was perfectly obvious what was happening at Fukushima on Saturday afternoon, when I posted bullet points at Skippy: there was going to be a major cleanup cost and the live reactors were not salvageable, but nothing fatal to many was loose in the atmosphere yet. Which is why I followed up […]

Oil prices and consumer spending.

With the recent surge in oil prices I thought it would be useful to look at the potential impact with one set of data I watch. It is energy as a share of personal consumption expenditures or consumer spending. In the 1970s energy consumption rose from about 6% to 9% of spending, or about 50%. […]

CGI, Day 4 – Clean Technology and Smart Energy: Deploying the Green Economy

Moderator is John Holdren, Science and Technology Advisor to President Barack Obama and Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Participants are: Nadia K. Al Dossary, Chief Executive Officer and Partner, Al Sale Eastern Co. Ltd Gary Hattem, President, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Deutsche Bank Tri Mumpuni, Executive Director, IBEKA Conrad van Oostrom, […]

Wyden’s Proposal for taxing oil and gas speculators

Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon who serves on the Senate Finance Committee and the Energy Committee, is generally considered a liberal, though with a mixed bag of positions that hardly qualify on all grounds. He is against the estate tax and favors lowering rates of capital gains taxes, neither of which makes sense, from […]

Presidential energy plans

Obama’s energy plan. Clinton’s energy plan. John McCain’s site John McCain ran into a lot of trouble with Republicans the last time he proposed a bill on climate change, getting only 38 votes in the senate. I could not find an energy policy different than the current President’s. If you have access to one, let […]

Growth, more than freedom of capital

We have been discussing a lot of economics through the political viewer lately. And I certainly have laid my point of view out there, but I also like the theory discussion. I like to think and know how stuff works or how someone interprets what they see. I believe discussing theories leads to better political […]