Former Xcel CEO Dick Kelly would be fine with no more coal. Unfortunately, the regulatory environment that his former employer works within in Colorado, and the company’s need to protect a couple of billion dollars worth of undepreciated coal assets makes it very hard for them to move away from it.
Tag: economics
WalMart selling cheap dutch-style bikes
WalMart is selling cheap dutch-style bikes. If you’re gonna sell cheap bikes, it makes a lot more sense to me for them to be simple and utilitarian (like the Flying Pigeon bikes of Tianjin), instead of double suspension 27 speed pieces of crap with lots of junk parts to break. If the bike is simple, for the same price point it can be more reliable. I hate WalMart, but I gotta say, I’m glad to see they’ve gotten on this particular bandwagon.
Virtual prison labor gangs in China
China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work. Prisoners are coal mining by day, gold farming by night… to the benefit the prison guards. Don’t earn enough gold? Get beaten with a pipe. Yet another indication we are living in a cyberpunk novel.
Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq. I don’t know who could possibly be surprised by this, but it’s both nice and horrible to have unequivocal confirmation. Goes a long way toward normalizing Donald Trump’s plan to steal (at least) $1.5 trillion worth of Iraqi oil if he’s elected president. Trump-Palin 2012! Apocalypse please.
Energy and Equity – Ivan Illich
Energy and Equity is an essay from the energy crisis of the 1970s. It’s got a socialist bent, but I don’t think that’s actually vital to the point being made. As the speeds at which we travel and the distances traversed have increased, the cost of that transportation as a fraction of personal income has also gone up. Going further faster isn’t really an improvement, if one has to work longer hours to pay for the privilege. Thoreau made a similar point with respect to trains. Bicycles are a notable exception to this trend. With them you can travel much further and faster, even including the time it takes to earn the bicycle and pay for the infrastructure it requires.
US Ikea workers complain about factory conditions
There’s some controversy over working conditions at an Ikea plant in Virginia. Apparently wages start at $8/hr, with 12 days of paid vacation (8 of which are determined by the company). Oh, and also you’ll often be informed Friday evening that you have no choice but to work over the weekend too. And don’t even think about unionizing. Sweet! It’s just like we keep saying about all those workers in China that make our cheap plastic crap. “At least they’ve got jobs.” I sense that we’re going to have to re-learn all of the lessons about balancing the rights of labor and capital that we already learned so bloodily about 100 years ago. Only now, maybe we get to learn it in the context of becoming an exploited low-wage nation in a global economy. Ikea workers doing the same jobs in Sweden make $19/hr and get 5 weeks of paid vacation a year. And they’re all unionized.
The Varied Costs of Catastrophe
Andrew Revkin notes on Dot Earth that the costs of an enormous earthquake in Indonesia, and in Japan are measured very differently. In Indonesia (or alternatively, Haiti) the cost is measured in human lives. More than 200,000 dead, but only $14 billion. In Japan, there’s a tenfold difference. ~20,000 dead, but $300 billion. I can’t help but think this says something about the morality of our global economy. What, I’m not quite sure.
Cornell refuses to sign journal pricing NDAs
Many academic journals require their library subscribers to sign non-disclosure agreements to keep their pricing structures secret. This is obviously anti-competitive, and precludes any kind of free market from forming. Cornell has decided it’s had enough of this, and will refuse to sign any such agreement in the future, while making the (often exorbitant) prices it pays for journal subscriptions public.
Moms market
Further developments in India’s commercial surrogacy market. As the government mulls more detailed regulations, existing rules are already being neatly side-stepped. For instance, sex-selection is not permitted in India, but it is in Panama, so the embryo screening is done on the isthmus, with those selected forwarded to the subcontinent for implantation. Egg banks in India now stock a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds from international donors. It’s a baby smorgasbord. Gattaca, here we come!
All Transportation Infrastructure is Development
A good post from Fort Worthology on the perils of continuing to build late-20th century sprawling car-centric cities, and the fallacy that transit/bike/pedestrian infrastructure is a “handout for developers” while highways are not. All public infrastructure — especially transportation infrastructure — has consequences for developers, and economic development, and you get the development you build your transportation systems for. Who wants to be the next Detroit? Who wants to continue supporting the petro-dictators? Not me, thanks.