Environment
Business & Economics
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
Business & Economics
‘Government involvement’ never leads to lowered prices
After almost a month of repairs, the K.R. Harrington Water Treatment Plant is back in operation. Nashville residents can bathe and wash dishes normally. Now that the crisis has passed, it is useful to reflect on the economic lessons of government pricing and rationing. Let’s start with the basic facts. ...
Business & Economics
It’s not easy being nonunion green
SACRAMENTO – The state’s Democratic legislators have an inordinate hostility to the free marketplace, as evidenced by their endless push for new business regulations and for higher taxes for corporations and wealthy Californians. Yet there is one form of business development that the California Left has embraced with particular gusto ...
Climate Change
Report Card for the IPCC
The nations capital has been slammed with storms this winter, and so has the climate-change debate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) is now attempting to dig out from a scandal that policy makers and ordinary citizens alike will find instructive. In November, emails from the Climate Research Unit ...
Climate Change
Senate Climate Vote Usurps Authority, Endangers Democracy
Last week, the senate refused to take true responsibility for climate change legislation by letting the Environmental Protection Agency essentially usurp that authority. In a 53-47 vote, senators struck down Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval to overturn the EPA’s power grab to set climate policy. In a controversial ...
California
Voters, not leaders, confront Vallejo’s mess
Two years after Vallejo made history as the first city in the Golden State to file for bankruptcy, voters have grasped the city’s dire financial situation even if some members of local government haven’t. Residents appeared to have approved Measure A by a slim margin last week. The vote count ...
Commentary
The Massachusetts health care mess is coming soon to the rest of America
Devotees of big government, like Archimedes, believe that if they have a long lever and a place to stand, they can move the world. In 2006, a bipartisan band of such politicians in Massachusetts immersed themselves in wishful thinking, ignored both hard facts and proven theory, and used their political ...
Health Care
The Federal Government Can Never “Fix” the “Doc Fix”
Key Points: Medicare Part B beneficiaries are facing a crisis of access to physicians, because the federal government sets fees at an inadequate level. The U.S. government has promised physicians that it will “fix” the fees for the long term, but has proven incompetent to do anything more than patch ...
Environment
Inherit the Wind – the Reality Show
Investor-owned utility company National Grid agreed to a 15-year purchasing contract with Cape Wind, where the utility would purchase the project’s wind energy at 20.7 cents per kilowatt hour beginning in 2013, and increasing at 3.5 percent annually thereafter. Contrast this with the current average wholesale energy rate of 6 ...
Business & Economics
Can Government Balance Nature by Killing Sea Lions?
SACRAMENTO – California sea lions sometimes swim some 90 miles up the Sacramento River, passing the state capitol on their journey. A local fisherman, Mr. Larry Legans, has been accused of shooting a sea lion for consuming the fish he caught. Mr. Legans, who faces three years in prison and ...
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
‘Government involvement’ never leads to lowered prices
After almost a month of repairs, the K.R. Harrington Water Treatment Plant is back in operation. Nashville residents can bathe and wash dishes normally. Now that the crisis has passed, it is useful to reflect on the economic lessons of government pricing and rationing. Let’s start with the basic facts. ...
It’s not easy being nonunion green
SACRAMENTO – The state’s Democratic legislators have an inordinate hostility to the free marketplace, as evidenced by their endless push for new business regulations and for higher taxes for corporations and wealthy Californians. Yet there is one form of business development that the California Left has embraced with particular gusto ...
Report Card for the IPCC
The nations capital has been slammed with storms this winter, and so has the climate-change debate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) is now attempting to dig out from a scandal that policy makers and ordinary citizens alike will find instructive. In November, emails from the Climate Research Unit ...
Senate Climate Vote Usurps Authority, Endangers Democracy
Last week, the senate refused to take true responsibility for climate change legislation by letting the Environmental Protection Agency essentially usurp that authority. In a 53-47 vote, senators struck down Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval to overturn the EPA’s power grab to set climate policy. In a controversial ...
Voters, not leaders, confront Vallejo’s mess
Two years after Vallejo made history as the first city in the Golden State to file for bankruptcy, voters have grasped the city’s dire financial situation even if some members of local government haven’t. Residents appeared to have approved Measure A by a slim margin last week. The vote count ...
The Massachusetts health care mess is coming soon to the rest of America
Devotees of big government, like Archimedes, believe that if they have a long lever and a place to stand, they can move the world. In 2006, a bipartisan band of such politicians in Massachusetts immersed themselves in wishful thinking, ignored both hard facts and proven theory, and used their political ...
The Federal Government Can Never “Fix” the “Doc Fix”
Key Points: Medicare Part B beneficiaries are facing a crisis of access to physicians, because the federal government sets fees at an inadequate level. The U.S. government has promised physicians that it will “fix” the fees for the long term, but has proven incompetent to do anything more than patch ...
Inherit the Wind – the Reality Show
Investor-owned utility company National Grid agreed to a 15-year purchasing contract with Cape Wind, where the utility would purchase the project’s wind energy at 20.7 cents per kilowatt hour beginning in 2013, and increasing at 3.5 percent annually thereafter. Contrast this with the current average wholesale energy rate of 6 ...
Can Government Balance Nature by Killing Sea Lions?
SACRAMENTO – California sea lions sometimes swim some 90 miles up the Sacramento River, passing the state capitol on their journey. A local fisherman, Mr. Larry Legans, has been accused of shooting a sea lion for consuming the fish he caught. Mr. Legans, who faces three years in prison and ...
