Author Archives: Other News Sources

(February 7, 2008) Since Maggie Thatcher broke up the United Kingdom’s dysfunctional energy monopolies two decades ago, costs plummeted, as did prices for consumers, as a wave of new entrants into the energy business led to a textbook example of the benefits of competition. Today, the typical household has several thousand options in purchasing power that come to it courtesy of six dozen different licensed merchants. Compare that to the choices your local power monopolist provides you. Continue reading →

(January 16, 2008) Arthur Cecil Pigou, the celebrated 20th century economist who created a discipline over externalities, has developed a large following over the notion of taxing “bads” such as gasoline, and not just among economists. Environmentalists have taken up the theme over the last decade, and so, too, have many conservatives. Why tax meritorious activities such as earning an income, or purchasing a product, many argue, when taxing activities without merit can instead raise tax revenues? Continue reading →

(December 7, 2007) Coal, chock-full of substances of known toxicity, epitomizes dirty fuel. The perils in coal burning – and this is an abbreviated list – include fly ash and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, sulphur, vanadium, beryllium, cadmium, barium, chromium, molybdenum, zinc, selenium, radium, uranium and thorium. If these substances and their byproducts are not controlled in coal burning, to keep emissions within safe levels, human health and the environment can suffer. Continue reading →