[Emily Horton (research asst.) and Emma Sifre (budget intern) are colleagues of mine at CBPP. Just to mix things up a bit, I asked them to choose a figure from the new 2017 ERP and write a bit of text to go with it (I’m featuring figures from the ERP this week). I think they made… Read more
Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
Obama’s new oil fee idea and the increase in miles driven
Readers know I’ve long called for an increase in the federal gas tax. I’m not trying to piss anybody off–believe me, I was initially pleased earlier this week when I filled my tank up for under $20! Then, I thought about how fossil fuels are truly under-priced. I mean this in two senses. First, we… Read more
A quick look at recent wage growth
One can decompose the growth in real (inflation-adjusted) weekly earnings into the parts due to: a) hourly wage growth b) weekly hours worked c) inflation So, the growth in real weekly earnings = a + b – c, or nominal hourly wage growth plus hours growth minus the rate of inflation. Now that we have… Read more
I like cheap gas too, but…
…there are lots of ways in which such cheap energy is less than a blessing for the economy, not to mention the environment. Over at WaPo.
Here’s one reason it’s really hard to do enough on climate: Gas prices are the same today as they were 10 years ago!
I understand that there are many reasons why it’s hard to get anywhere close to the amount of intervening we should be doing to push back on carbon emissions. We heavily discount future risks, deep pocketed interests fill their deep pockets with profits maintained by the status quo, they buy politicians who help them wit… Read more