Food Price Slide Finally Stops?
For the first time in a while, the global food price did not decline in this week’s Economist commodity price index.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
OPEC: A Bunch of Cheaters
One of the problems with cartels is the extent to which members cheat. According to the EIA, OPEC’s members can be expected to cheat on their latest agreement to cut production though, oddly, EIA expects them to cheat less than usual: A key question regarding OPEC’s October 24 announcement of a 1.5 million bbl/d output …
On Bingaman in the Cabinet
My take on why Jeff Bingaman as Energy Secretary doesn’t make a lot of sense: But there is a story I’ve heard told enough times that, if it’s not true, it ought to be. When Bill Richardson was being considered for the position of Energy Secretary in 1998, he asked Bingaman what he thought. Bingaman’s …
Patriotism in the Morning
We used to call Nora “our little loaf of bread,” because that’s how big she was. Lissa recalled this morning taking her with us to the polls in what must have been November 1988, her very first election. Last night, I was alternately working up a frenzy and sitting in the newspaper office, waiting for …
Has Global Warming Stopped?
David Appell asks.
Please Consider Not Voting
Greg Mankiw reprises the argument for why you might consider not going out and voting: Anyone who has ever entered a polling booth can easily see why roll off occurs. You come ready to vote for your favorite candidate in some race you’ve been following closely, but then you face a whole list of races …
More Elasticity
Here’s another remarkable measure of “income elasticity” – the consumption response to being (or feeling) broke: That’s EIA’s “petroleum product supplied”, which is a good proxy for gasoline consumption. Contrary to a bizarre story in the New York Times last week, gasoline consumption has fallen off a cliff since early September. The Times story suggests …
Income Elasticity
Elasticity – consumers’ changing demand for a good – comes in two flavors. When prices go up, we consume less. But we also consume less when we’re broke, which is what’s happening today in the auto market. Gas prices are dropping like a stone in a pond, but as James Hamilton notes, we’re not buying …
Albuquerque October Rainfall
Airport average: 0.88 inch (2.24 cm) Airport 2008: 1.38 inches (3.5 cm) My house: 1.64 inches (4.17 cm) Worth noting: that all came the first half of the month. It’s been dry since.
Climate Change in Albuquerque
Fans of hockey sticks and other related climatic time series will no doubt see a familiar shape if they squint and look at this graph from the Albuquerque Office of the National Weather Service: