- Losing $63 Billion to Gray Market – P&G sells the same bleach and diapers to distributors in the US and Honduras, at wildly different prices. Enterprising Central American businessmen then re-ship goods to US making a tidy profit. This is a gray market? Sounds like a free market to me! Industry isn't "losing" $63B, they're just not being allowed to cheat their American customers. Remember how in capitalism competition is supposed to drive the cost of goods to the cost of production? Where were these guys in Econ 101? (tagged: economics trade policy )
- Britain’s Antiterror Officer Resigns – The prevalence of citizen collected surveillance, whether it be news media or cell-phone videos has made it clear what a bunch of liars the Authorities are. When given the chance to cover their own asses by abusing the institutionalized trust we have in them, they seem almost always to do so. The cameras are here. They are ubiquitous. They are not going away. They might as well record the cops. (tagged: transparency security police terrorism surveillance media )
- Bill Moyers Journal William K. Black – Interview with a former regulator who worked to restructure the Savings and Loans in the 1980s, on the current state of affairs. (tagged: finance economics bailout banking moyers politics regulation )
- Sabotage suspected in widespread phone outage in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties – Two targeted snips of fiber optic cables in the south bay have cut off hundreds of thousands of people from cell, landline, and network connectivity, including 911 access. Working hypothesis: disgruntled union workers, upset at the fact that contract negotiations are ongoing after expiration this Saturday. How fragile our little world is it seems. (tagged: terrorism security technology internet )
- Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world – Ten suggestions from Nassim Taleb, which we are almost certainly not going to implement voluntarily. (tagged: economics finance bailout taleb probability banking )
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Zane Selvans on Think Again: Drugs
- Bryan Keith on Think Again: Drugs
- Coal Finance for Climate Activists | Amateur Earthling on Boulder’s Energy Future Is Bright
- Hanna on Straight Talk on Climate Progress in California
- Coal Exports a Bigger Threat Than Tar Sands | Amateur Earthling on Obama Delays Keystone XL Pipeline
Linkstream
- PACE Lives!
The Federal Housing Finance Administration is taking public comments on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, at the insistence of California's 9th Circuit court of appeals. Here's what I told them: Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, as have been initiated by many states and local governments, are a potentially transformative financing mechanism, enabling property owners to make good long term investments in energy efficiency and behind-the-meter renewable energy production. They address a market failure, in that buyers often do not appropriately integrate a property's energy costs into their price assessment. So long as the state and local PACE programs are - Climate Denial Instruction In Schools
Corporate interests are pushing a model bill in many states that would require schools to teach climate change denial. It sounds creepily reminiscent of the creationism/evolution mess from a few years ago. Except with the fossil fuel industry instead of the religious right behind it. Gah. - Vision Prize
Vision Prize is an expert poll on the nature of the climate risks we face, meant to demonstrate the degree of consensus (or the lack thereof) amongst those able to judge the evidence. It's put together by Carnegie Mellon University. Will be interesting to see what the results look like... - Open Climate Science Course
The University of Chicago has created an Open Courseware style Climate Science 101, with videos of the lectures and self-assessment materials online. It's aimed at non-science undergraduates. If you, or someone you know, want to get a little more in depth knowledge about climate science on their own time, it's a great resource. - Think Again: Drugs
A great roundup of the myths surrounding the Drug War, and the cogent arguments against continuing our ridiculous, harmful, and expensive policy of ideological prohibition.
- PACE Lives!
Twitterfeed
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 2 weeks ago
- What I learned about coal industry finances this week: http://t.co/UN1lXxRm 3 weeks ago
- In a room full of suits at NYU law. Everyone here wants to end the Reign of Old King Coal. Strangulation by purse strings. 4 weeks ago
- More thoughts on the dangers of giving in to a defeatist climate apocalypse narrative: http://t.co/Bwq276vQ from @AlexSteffen 1 month ago
- Authorizing US military to indefinitely detain citizens w/o trial would be unconstitutional, right? http://t.co/cRKXkpfb #tellmeimdreaming 2 months ago
Incoming Memes