Gulf Microbe Study Was Funded by BP

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

It is worth knowing that the apparently important reports that the oil had disappeared, consumed by microbes, came from research funded by BP.  Hardly gives us encouragement about the results, does it.

Earlier this week, major news outlets ran with headlines about how a new microbe has been found eating up BP’s oil, and how microbes have degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the vast plumes of oil in the Gulf are now undetectable. No joke.

…

MIT’s Science Tracker, in a post published yesterday, noted that the microbe study was conducted by U.C. Berkeley scientists through a grant with the Energy Biosciences Institute, and that the Energy Biosciences Institute is funded by none other than BP, through a $500 million, 10-year grant. (To the researchers’ credit, they also mentioned the funding in their press release — you just had to read about three-quarters of the way through.)

via Take It With a Grain of (Sea) Salt: Gulf Microbe Study Was Funded by BP – ProPublica.

Filed under Environment, Florida

Inequality in the US

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

More inequality is not good for the US economy and society. Especially, when the inequality is encouraged directly by government policies.  Rich getting richer will not help return the economy to a better balance nor will it lead miraculously to more growth and more tax revenues–it will do just the opposite.

Tax policy is one of the best tools we have to help offset the troubling trend of growing inequality. Unfortunately, the Bush tax cuts have had the opposite effect, providing much larger benefits — both in dollar terms and as a percentage of income — to people at the very top than to middle- and lower-income people. People making more than $1 million get an average of about $124,000 each year in tax cuts, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The main reason, of course, is the large tax cuts targeted specifically at high-income households.

So this fall, when policymakers decide whether to extend the high-end tax cuts, they should keep in mind just how unequal incomes in the United States have become. As former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder wrote recently in the Washington Post, is the rationale for extending these tax cuts “that America needs more income inequality? Seems to me we have enough.” To me, too.

via Economist’s View: “Inequality and the High-End Bush Tax Cuts”.

Filed under Economy

Legacy of the “Slesnick Commission”

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

The city is nearing the close of an era and we may be getting a different commission next year.  The end of what we might call the “Slesnick Commission” has left a background of living through a bubble economy, a break down in management oversight and an abortive adaptation to changing economic conditions.

The next commission and mayor will find:

  • Still a bloated government;
  • A pattern of relentless property tax increases in goods times and in bad;
  • Mismanagement of the Country Club lease;
  • Mismanagement of the Biltmore Hotel lease;
  • A $200 million (to date)  pension liability;
  • An accumulation of unsustainable salaries and benefits;
  • A contracting tax base;
  • A resistance to building the edifice of a modern, open, well organized government with the participation of residents in significant decisions;
  • Weak and compliant city boards;
  • Unwelcome and costly projects, such as the new museum;
  • A government without an apparent strategy to promote new industries and businesses in new growth clusters; and
  • The end of large-scale commercial and residential real estate development for long period.

Certainly, there have been achievements of the commission, but they are swamped by the problems.  Some of these problems are not the blame of the commission, including the inevitable economic collapse.  But the reaction of the City of Coral Gables to the crisis has been insipid.

Filed under Coral Gables, Economy, Government, Management

Dead in the Water

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

My pessimism is widespread–

Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist who predicted the global financial crisis, said U.S. growth will be “well below” 1 percent in the third quarter and put the odds of a renewed recession at 40 percent.

via Roubini Says Third Quarter Growth in U.S. to Be ‘Well Below’ 1% – Bloomberg.com.

Filed under Economy

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