DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch wants to set arbitrary requirements for renewable energy use. Incumbent Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, agrees completely and notes he had the idea first. While these candidates are united in support of command-and-control environmental policy,…
Tempering news about short pause
Sometimes economic news is not as important as the media make it out to be. That was the case Tuesday when the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee decided to pause its constriction of the money supply, i.e. the target rate…
There is no universal fix to global pollution
Pollution from Asia increasingly is being detected in the western United States. That was the gist of a widely circulated Associated Press story a week ago. The lesson is that pollution freely crosses political and geographical borders. Even so, we…
Market jitters underscore a stormy horizon
Financial markets are as nervous as the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Take that lesson from stock and bond market reactions to economic news this week. Gyrations of the Dow and other indexes are highly…