Month: December 2014

OPEC’s decision to push oil prices down assumes that lower prices reduce the supply of oil. However, unlike most natural resources, the marginal cost of producing another barrel of oil is low, once a well is drilled. Thus, oil pumping…

While a strong brew of internecine party politics and special interest lobbying appears to have made passage of the FY 2015 budget difficult, don’t be deceived. The budget battle is over the stagnant $1.1 trillion discretionary portion of the budget.…

The Friday File: The college football playoff final-four was designed to let the top four teams (Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, Ohio State) play to determine a winner, rather than relying on dubious polls. The top four played 13 games each…

Unemployment in the Eurozone is at a sky-high 11.5% (its peak here was 10%), annual inflation is running at a microscopic 0.3% matching a five year low and is expected to fall further. Worse, manufacturing activity is stalling and is…

In a shrewd move the Fed will impose added capital requirements on the nation’s biggest banks. The additional capital will penalize banks that rely heavily on short-term funding. This will force these banks to hold more capital and reduce their…

In 2013, US CO2 emissions increased by 2.5%. Emissions are a function of four variables: population, GDP/person, energy intensity and CO2 intensity. Population growth boosted emissions by 0.7%, rising GDP/person boosted emissions by 1.5%, energy intensity surprisingly rose by 0.5%…

The Friday File: The nearly completed One World Trade Center has the honor of being the priciest skyscraper ever built at $3.9 billion. The two buildings tied for second were each built for a paltry $1.9 billion. As for height,…