Water California, among many other places, is now in the grips of scarily intense drought. Yet, California still uses an awful lot of water. Golf courses and car-washes are obvious wasters, but agriculture is the thing that really sucks California dry. California as a whole diverts or pumps 43 million acre-feet of water each year… Continue reading Seven Things We Waste in Huge Amounts
Category: Finance
Corn to Burn
Now and then I am forced to step back and realize that there are things in our modern economy, things we pass by every day and barely give a second thought, which are actually mind-bogglingly absurd. I’m serious; Caligula’s horse in the Roman Senate seems tame compared to some of this stuff. I happened across… Continue reading Corn to Burn
Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!
Easter Island is the Earth’s most remote inhabited island, 1,400 miles from its nearest island neighbor. At one time, though, a complex civilization existed there, as evidenced by the mysterious monuments they left behind — some of them weighing more than twenty tons. Yet when European explorers first arrived at the island in the 19th… Continue reading Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!
Corn to Burn
Now and then I am forced to step back and realize that there are things in our modern economy, things we pass by every day and barely give a second thought, which is actually mind-bogglingly absurd. I’m serious; Caligula’s horse in the Roman Senate seems tame compared to some of this stuff. I happened across… Continue reading Corn to Burn
Progress and Poverty: Confronting Economic Inequity in America
Progress and Poverty-How Henry George Confronted Inequality from Robert Schalkenbach Foundation on Vimeo. Panel Discussion, “Progress and Poverty: Confronting Economic Inequity in America,” marking FDU Press publication of The Annotated Works of Henry George: Progress and Poverty, Volume II, edited by Francis Peddle and William Peirce with Alexandra Lough, with panelists Mary (Polly) Cleveland, environmental economics, Columbia University,… Continue reading Progress and Poverty: Confronting Economic Inequity in America
Boom Bust: Economic Cycles are Land Cycles
This is an introductory slide show explanation of land’s role in the business cycle.
The Ball and Chain Economy
Things must be getting pretty dull when the Fed’s interest rate report tops the headlines, but there it was: front-page hoopla over Chairman Bernanke’s bold announcement of a sweeping new strategy. Interest rates will remain very low indeed, he said, until unemployment goes below 6.5 percent. Well, Shoot Me Now. While I gather my thoughts… Continue reading The Ball and Chain Economy
Camden Blues
It’s amazing how we calmly accept the most absurd things, simply because they’ve been that way for a while. Today’s example is the notion that cities are nasty, brutal, crime-ridden places packed with poor people. Why should it be in what way? What makes it that way? No idea; it’s just how things are, in… Continue reading Camden Blues
A Most Harmonious Disagreement
Economists seem to be pretty good at consolidating corporations’ profits, yet they seem powerless to address persistent social problems such as persistent poverty and climate change. Why is mainstream economics so inept? Could it be that the key factor they’re missing is right under their feet? Modern-day Economics Many students ask the question, “What does… Continue reading A Most Harmonious Disagreement
These Kids Today
In the fiscal year that ended in June, 52,193 undocumented minors were caught crossing the United States’s southern border. That is twice as many as the previous year. Many of these children were unaccompanied. The vast majority are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, into which drug gangs and violence have spread from Mexico. There… Continue reading These Kids Today