By Paolo von Schirach May 18, 2012 WASHINGTON – After the Fukushima disaster that highlighted the vulnerability of its nuclear power plants, Japan decided to shut them all down. Whatever the merit of this shift, the loss of this electric power generation capacity will be made up by increased reliance on natural gas as fuel [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 17, 2012 WASHINGTON – I am quite uneasy with the hype surrounding the Facebook IPO. I thought I was in a minority of one when I saw an equally skeptical The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Rich Karlgaard, Forbes publisher. (The Future Is More Than Facebook, May 17, 2012). Well, [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 12, 2012 WASHINGTON - A Fox TV interview by John Stossel with Luis Fortuno, the Governor of Puerto Rico, made me curious to learn more. This boysh (just 51 years old, and looking more like 31) Republican has had the courage to meet head on the challenge of a gigantic state debt [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 11, 2012 WASHINGTON – American enthusiasm for renewable energy, not too deep to begin with, has gone away. In part this has to do with loss of interest in “climate change” and its dire consequences. Unfortunately, climate change has been and is mostly an issue of political belief, rather than upholding [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 7, 2012 WASHINGTON – Watching on C-SPAN, (the meritorious public affairs TV channels), a session of the US House Budget Committee was quite depressing. There was no real debate on the issues aimed at getting to some constructive policy outcome. I heard only prepackaged slogans and a lot of predictable posturing.
By Paolo von Schirach May 6, 2012 WASHINGTON – When discussing illegal immigrants from Mexico, for some reasons the conversation becomes immediately emotional. And the latest May 4, 2012 Bill Moyers show on PBS is no exception. Moyers had a an excellent guest, author Luis Alberto Urrea. Urrea has the admirable, almost magic, quality of giving life to the harrowing experiences [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 24, 2012 WASHINGTON – Finally America is taking notice. The shale gas revolution may very well be able to provide the cheap fuel that will energize an American industrial renaissance. FORTUNE magazine’s cover story (April 30, 2012) is aptly titled “The United States of Natural Gas“. Indeed, a few remarkable years into the [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 18, 2012 WASHINGTON – Because of increased US extraction, when it comes to oil supplies the US is doing much better these days. America is producing more of the roughly 19 million barrel a day it consumes. It used to imports about 60% and now we are down to 50% of domestic consumption. While less [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – Sebastian Mallaby, (The Buffettt rule is a sorry excuse for tax reform, The Financial Times, April 13, 2012), correctly points out that President Obama’s insistence in pushing the idea of tax increases for the rich (the “Buffett rule”) is bogus tax reform. Surely we could and probably [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 12, 2012 WASHINGTON – US natural gas prices have hit rock bottom. US produced gas is now around $ 2 per million British Thermal Units (BTU). This is the lowest price since 2002. This is a gift of geology –large shale gas reserves on American soil– and of US ingenuity that developed “hydrofracking” as a cost [...]