09 | May | 2012

Friday, May 24, 2013

Mission control: Chevron’s new real-time drilling optimization center in Texas. From MIT’s Technology Review: “Big Oil Goes Mining for Big Data: As petroleum production gets trickier, digital innovation becomes more crucial”: “The world isn’t running out of oil and natural … read more >

Economics, U.S. Economy

The social issues election? Really?

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 4:43 pm

A nice reminder from Pew about the state of the U.S. labor market (H/T to NRO’s The Agenda):

Foreign and Defense Policy, Europe and Russia

OK, here’s what wrong with Greece, too …

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 3:50 pm

Let me give Greece the same treatment that I did in the previous post: Here is the World Economic Forum analysis: Wow, I wonder why German taxpayers don’t want to cut Athens a check! Just as with Italy, Greece … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Europe and Russia

What’s wrong with Italy (and much of the rest of the EU) in a nutshell

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 3:34 pm

I think these two tables from the World Economic Forum tell the story of Italy, as well as several other struggling EU nations: Bad government, too-high taxes, too much debt, too much regulation. And the response is to raise taxes? … read more >

Economics

Sweden’s amazing supply-side, tax-cut experiment

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 2:59 pm

Can we replace Tim Geithner with Anders Borg, ASAP? Mega-thanks to my pal Mark Perry at Carpe Diem for pointing out this article detailing Sweden’s amazing supply-side experiment in tax cuts (bold for emphasis): When Europe’s finance ministers meet for … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy, Europe and Russia

Oh, by all means, France should certainly spend more instead of deregulating … not

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 2:34 pm

When economists talk about pro-growth structural reforms in Europe, this is the kind of thing they mean: Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What … read more >

Economics, Entitlements

Will Obamacare crush middle-income Americans?

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 2:18 pm

More and more, Obamacare is looking like the ultimate case study in unexpected consequences. AEI’s Scott Gottlieb: A family of four with an aggregate income of more than $88,000 annually or an individual earning around $44,000 could find themselves badly … read more >

Carpe Diem

Chronicle of Higher Education Fires a Blogger

Mark J. Perry | May 9, 2012, 1:25 pm

From a Chronicle of Higher Education (paid subscription required) article highlighting the first cohort of students graduating from Northwestern University’s doctoral program in black studies, including Ph.D. candidate La TaSha B. Levy: “Ms. Levy is interested in examining the long … read more >

Economics, Energy and the Environment

Are environmentalists shale-gas deniers?

Kenneth P. Green | May 9, 2012, 1:10 pm

That’s the question energy-blogger John Hanger asks, in a post extolling the greenhouse-gas and pollution-reducing virtues of the shale-gas boom (emph. mine): Yet, despite the massive carbon, mercury, soot, and lead benefits provided by the rise of gas, the bashing … read more >

Economics

Europe’s failed experiment in tax-hike austerity

James Pethokoukis | May 9, 2012, 12:59 pm

The anti-austerity crowd on the left just can’t seem to accept “yes” for an answer. Yes, austerity isn’t working in Europe. But for some reason, austerity critics decline to acknowledge that such a high-tax region probably shouldn’t have started cranking … read more >