Shale gas is booming in the US and Canada and according to some sources is bound to become to most important source of primary energy. There are however some real concerns, concerning both its ecological and economical viability. Behind the overly optimistic assumptions, some insiders reveal worrying figures about rapidly falling production in many wells…
Indonesia – On the Shopping Spree
Indonesia’s middle class (more than US$ 3000 available income per year) is rapidly expanding. Only 1.6 million people in 2004, it is now about 50 million people and according to analysts it will be close to 150 million in 2014. And they put their income to good use. Indonesians bought 8 million scooters and 750’000…
China – Power Stations Reduce Output
China’s generally very effective development machine faces new challenges. With inflation on the rise and heavily relying on export oriented low cost and energy intensive industries, China’s bureaucracy scrambles to keep electricity costs down. One might consider this to be an easy task. After all, utilities are state controlled and basically have to follow orders….
Google Plus – Compliment from Facebook
Google just introduced its new social network “Google plus”. It is basically a Facebook copy with a clean look, much easier privacy settings and above all the possibility to organize contacts in different circles with varying levels of intimacy – much closer to human reality than Facebook’s one size fits all approach. First reviews are…
Wind Energy – Too Much Power for the US North-West
Plentiful and now melting snow has completely filled many reservoirs in the US North-West. To the extent actually that operators are now forced to produce too much electricity destroying demand for the output of the many wind power stations in the region. In an unprecedented step, wind farms are now regularly taken from the grid…
Minimal Wages – No Negative Effects on Employment After All
Minimal wages have a rather bad reputation among economists. Increasing salaries for little qualified jobs is supposed to make such work unprofitable for employers. Employees instead of enjoying higher wages would find themselves with no wages at all, which as a consequence would also be detrimental for state finances. Well, in science, a theory is…
Wal-Mart – Unstoppable But in New York
Wal-Mart is the worldwide biggest retailer, synonymous for shopping à l’américaine, huge supermarkets, oversized shopping carts and packages, over-dimensioned parkings and under-dimensioned prices, wages and union rights. In the US, Wal-Mart is everywhere but – in spite of a multi-million-lobby campaign – not yet in New York City. In the big apple, local stores, politicians,…
Hunger – Up to 50% of Harvested Food is Wasted
Rising food prices are a major issue. Way too many people still go hungry and millions are threatened to be pushed back into poverty because food is getting more and more expensive. Considering the magnitude of the problem it is noteworthy that up to 50% of the worldwide harvested foodstuff is lost before it reaches…
Taxes – Every 10th Dollas Goes to the Consultants
New figures on the US tax system. I already wrote about it but this is again absolutely noteworthy. For filing them, US tax payers invest 6 billion hours (250 million working days, 35 million weeks or 8.9 million months, employing 800’000 full time very good paid consultants and paying 162 billion dollars which equals 11%…
Patents – Chinese Mass-Production
Patents are commonly perceived as indicators of a country’s innovation and creativity – maybe not for long anymore. This year, China will probably file more patents than any other country. This achievement however is more due to massive state incentives than due to raising creativity and research success. Filing above-average numbers of patents wins tenure…
Coal – China Burns the Coal That we Save
It is now generally acknowledged that coal-fired power plants emits huge amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2 and menace the world climate more than other sources of energy. As a consequence developed countries are trying to switch to other more sustainable power sources. Unfortunately the saved coal is still being mined and then shipped to…
Micro-credits – Bad Ending
Since Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen bank was awarded the Nobel price, micro-credits are considered a kind of magic tool in development. However, as in other business sectors, too much success and too little regulation and control triggers very unwelcome outcomes. Going for the big returns on investments, more and more banks started to offering…
India – Indigenous Tribe More Important Than Aluminium Mine
Under the slopes of the mountain Niyamgiri – holy to the indigenous Indian tribe Dongriah Kond hide important deposits of bauxite (used to produce aluminum) that the company Vedanta plans to extract. An Avatar-like setting, however with a different outcome. The Indian ministry of environment now decided against the mine, since this would endanger the…
Taxes – The Trickle-Down-Myth
Myths are when people irrationally believe in something that isn’t real. An example from the tax-economy is the trickle-down-effect. In simple terms, the trickle-down-effect is when rich people invest money that they don’t pay as taxes, in the economy, which then creates as least as many jobs, as if the state had collected that money…
Living standard – Taiwan moves past Japan
Since the golden 60′s, 70′s and 80′, Japan is stagnating. The population is rapidly shrinking, the economy, despite huge state interventions, is sluggish, prices are decreasing and consumers postponing purchases. In 2010, Japan – contrary to the expectation only 20 years before, to taking over number one from the US – was overtaken by China…
Great-Britain – Catching-up on Renewable Energy
England, for a long time virtually energy-independent thanks to its North-Sea-petrol, has badly missed to develop its huge wind-energy-potential. While for instance Germany has become a leading player in this future-proof industry, Britain only now starts to pay attention. Being late, it goes directly after the more challenging offshore wind farm-technology, which promises to harvest…
Development Aid – China One of the Biggest Recipient of Health Funding
China, now the second-biggest economy and disposing staggering 2.4 trillion US$ of currency reserves is one of the major recipients of development aid money aimed at improve health conditions and infrastructures in poor developing countries. More precisely, it is the fourth-biggest receiver of money for combating malaria and tuberculosis even though it is much less…
Aviation – Low Cost Carriers Prosper Thanks to Massive Subsidies
Taking the plane in Europe is frequently much cheaper than traveling by train. This not only sounds unlikely, it is. The ultra low cost tickets are only possible because of a note-worthy abuse of public subsidize. Take Ryanair as an example. The Irish carrier requires massive subsidizing of regional airports and their surrounding regions in…
Development – Minimum Salary Strategy With Surprisingly Good Results
Financial development aid is – not always wrongly – suspected not only not to deliver results but even to aggravate the economical situation by stimulating corruption and bad governance in general. A note-worthily successful Namibian pilot project now gives money not to the government but distributes a guaranteed minimum salary directly to the people. All…
Electric bicycle boom in China – For Real!
In spite of the economic crisis the electric bicycle market is booming. In Europe e-bikes get trendy, and even more so in China, where sales really take off. There, the 1000 producers sold about 22m units for about 11b $ in 2009. On the other hand the conventional bike market contracted by a fourth to…
