Speaking to a group of welders in Euclid, Ohio, yesterday, President Bush called for an expansion of commercial nuclear power to alleviate America’s dependence on foreign oil. In his speech at Lincoln Electric Co., self-described as the welding capital of the world, Bush focused largely on energy prices and offered …
The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle looks over Barack Obama’s economic plans and doesn’t like what she sees. Focusing on taxes she writes: As if those things [trade and labor law] weren’t enough, he wants to raise the capital gains tax. There is a reason that most [countries] tax capital lightly–actually several …
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute’s Daniel Ikenson examines how nations can still increase free trade despite yesterday’s collapse of the Doha Round WTO talks: As Doha negotiations sputtered for seven years, the WTO reports that annual global trade flows have increased 70%, to $14 trillion. UNCTAD reports …
President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers and Heritage don’t always agree. But few experts seem to be satisfied that the new regulator for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be enough to address the systemic risk Fannie and Freddie pose to our financial system. Summers wrote in …
More than 75% of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by national oil companies. Of the world’s top 20 oil-producing firms, 14 are state-run. Those areas where private companies have been able to drill have recently been shrinking, and remaining private companies are facing hostile governments that may try to …
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who once threatened to resign if Congress stripped funding for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, was indicted yesterday on seven felony counts for failing to disclose gifts from an Alaskan firm. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Geneva, international talks aimed at ushering in a new era …
Some developments on nuclear energy from around the globe. Putin’s Nuclear Push: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stressed the need for nuclear power in his country at a meeting in Elektrostal, outside of Moscow. Part of his plan is to dedicate $42 billion in public spending toward building Russia’s nuclear …
A few alleged design hiccups and supposed cost increases in Westinghouse’s new AP1000 nuclear reactor have so-called public interest groups calling for the reactor to be taken off the table. Claiming that escalating costs and half-baked design ideas will result in a failure to build the reactors, environmental group Friends …
