Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic): Global Warming
Kill Oil, by Peter Huber
Wall Street Journal: “A carbon strategy the world can afford.”
Health Care Reform
Congress Veers Left on Health Care, by Kim Strassel Obama, Too Subtle to Lie, Misleads on Health Reform, by Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post: “You lie? No. Barack [...]
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic): Behavioral Economics
The Devil Wears Fake Prada, by Alex Tabarrok
Energy
Energy ‘Sprawl’ and the Green Economy, by Lamar Alexander
Wall Street Journal: “We’re about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.”
Financial Crisis
The Stimulus Didn’t Work, by John Cogan, John Taylor and [...]
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic): Economics
NY Times vividly admits that min wage causes unemployment, and gov is to blame, by Casey Mulligan
Professor Mulligan notes, “This article explains how NY schools are required to hire from a pool of senior teachers who must be paid more than [...]
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic): Energy Economics
‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy, by Micheal LynchNew York Times: “A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about the theory of peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the [...]
1. Lehman Brothers and AIG: As John Markman cleverly notes, “…the Federal Reserve stood up to the big Wall Street financial houses on Sunday and essentially told them, ‘thanks but no thanks’ on their request for a bridge loan to nowhere”. Consequently, Lehman Brothers (the 4th largest investment bank in the world) has filed for [...]
Today, the unleaded gasoline futures contract which trades on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) closed at around $3.04 per gallon. Less than two weeks ago, this contract was trading north of $3.60 per gallon. The futures price essentially represents a wholesale price that excludes taxes, transportation fees, service-station markups and other costs. [...]
University of Houston finance professor Craig Pirrong understands well how energy futures markets function in the real world (see his Wall Street Journal essay entitled “Restricting Speculators Will Not Reduce Oil Prices”). While Congress’s “Prevent Unfair Manipulation of Prices Act” makes for some interesting political theater, it won’t put a dent in the energy [...]
I received an email recently from a major airline company entitled “An open letter to all airline customers“. This letter has as it signatories 12 Airline CEOs, and it lays the blame for the airline industry’s current financial problems at the feet of all those “evil” oil speculators who are buying and selling oil futures [...]
During the course of the last three months, Greg Mankiw has collected an interesting assortment of anecdotal evidence concerning the effect of high energy prices on all sorts of different transactions, including the demand for online courses, bicycle sales, small car sales, scooter sales, home buying practices, the demand for mass transit, and even the [...]
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Feldstein provides a simple economics tutorial on oil prices entitled “We Can Lower Oil Prices Now”. Once you read this, you’ll understand why “Any steps that can be taken now to increase the future supply of oil, or reduce the future demand for oil in the U.S. or [...]