Category Archives: Economy

A battery researcher, speaking at the American Chemical Society annual meeting, reported that electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries should last 5 to 20 years — but apparently not when used predominantly above 86 degrees Fahrenheit 0

© 2013 Peter Free Citation Press Room, Understanding the life of lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles, American Chemical Society (10 April 2013) Yes with a but Mikael G. Cugnet told a session of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that: “The [electric vehicle lithium ion] battery pack could be [...]

Understanding fractions and long division predicts future math success — study also indicates that U.S. math teachers lack the basic understanding of mathematical concepts that their Chinese and Japanese counterparts easily display 0

Citation Robert S. Siegler, Greg J. Duncan, Pamela E. Davis-Kean, Kathryn Duckworth, Amy Claessens, Mimi Engel, Maria Ines Susperreguy, and Meichu Chen, Early Predictors of High School Mathematics Achievement, Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797612440101 (online before print, 14 June 2012) What the study found Even when variables like intelligence and family background are taken into account, [...]

We threw fuel economy gains away by giving in to speed- and size-lust — from 1980 to 2006, auto engineers achieved 60 percent better fuel economy, but American consumers realized only a 15 percent advance 0

Where our animal impulses are concerned, common sense just can’t win Most thoughtful people would agree that American national security would benefit from less profligate fuel consumption.  Yet, our auto-buying natures seem to be too impulsive to put that sensible idea into action. Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Christopher Knittel found that, from 1980 to [...]

Don’t trust your oncologist to be penny-wise, rather than pound foolish — A recent poll indicates that oncologists appear to value life-extension at any cost, as opposed to spending for quality of life enhancements 0

If this poll is accurate, it’s no wonder that American healthcare costs are out of control Peter Ubel’s survey of 1379 American oncologists produced some eye-finding findings: On average, the responses implied that oncologists were willing to prescribe treatments that cost $245,972 per quality-adjusted life-year . . . in life-prolonging situations v. only $119,082 per [...]

The difficulty of a Bolivian coca farmer’s life — Al Jazeera’s video presentation about “Risking it all: The flying men of Yungas valley” 0

Bolivian mountain poverty necessitates physical risks and difficult family lives Riding the 400 meter long cables the farmers use to cross the river canyon to get to their coca fields are challenging enough.  The bus ride they have take to market on a narrow and precipitous road is scarier still. Al Jazeera did an outstanding [...]

Big banks as bad guys using deliberately serial incompetences to make money — columnist Dana Milbank’s illustrative tale of mortgage woe 2

Are you also in this boat? Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank told a personal tale today that is illustrative of much of what’s wrong with our plutocrat-run country: Turns out Citibank, which had been collecting hundreds of dollars a month from us to pay the insurer, hadn’t made the payments. It was, I later learned, [...]

Still mad about how the financial sector stole the worth of your assets? — Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article will make you madder 0

You wonder why the super-rich are getting wealthier and the rest of us comparatively poorer? Matt Taibbi’s perspective matches the one I gained in corporate and government legal work.  If you are averse to occasionally crass language, however, don’t read what he wrote. Citation Matt Taibbi, Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?, Rolling Stone (03 [...]

Why do governments mistreat peasants? — The consequences of dumb policies (even in the United States) 0

Activist Gustavo Esteva wrote about short-sighted Mexican agricultural policy and its effect on the United States China and Mexico both seem to have created dislocation problems for themselves with peasant-slighting policies.  These difficulties result from misapplying urbanized thinking to landscapes where they don’t yet belong. Mexican activist Gustavo Esteva had this to say yesterday about [...]

High-speed rail as a misplaced priority — shouldn’t we be fixing our crumbling roads and bridges first? 0

Robert J. Samuelson nailed this one with logic Economics columnist Robert Samuelson is skeptical about the financial sense of high-speed rail: [T]he Obama administration proposes spending $53 billion over six years to construct a “national high-speed rail system.” There’s something wildly irresponsible about the national government undermining states’ already poor long-term budget prospects by plying [...]

Evangelical Christian Jim Wallis chides Republicans for un-Christian budget cuts 0

We’re so used to deceitful politicians that sometimes it helps to remind ourselves of their enormously fertile hypocrisies The Republican Party, particularly, loves to rant about “American” values and the close historical relationship between American government and Christianity. Every time one turns around, one of these (usually self-righteous) people is spouting about the evils of [...]