Author: Ed Lotterman

Society’s need for services, property-use regulations requires an ever-more-complicated balancing act

Consider these recent news items: Some dairy farmers in California completed a successful pilot plant to turn manure into much-needed electricity, using a biogas digester and a gas turbine. They are proposing a 15-megawatt plant using the manure from more…

Struggles in Argentine economy may hurt U.S. exports and plans for a free trade area

If you heard a giant sucking sound recently, it might have been the gurgle of the Argentine economy going down the drain again. With it may go an economic idea, the currency board, which has enjoyed much popularity among economists.…

Unfair international policies go far beyond the price of pharmaceuticals

Why do people become angry about some issues and not others? Take drug pricing by major pharmaceutical companies. Anger that prescriptions cost more in the United States than in Canada helped elect a U.S. senator in Minnesota last year. An…

Protection for U.S. steel industry just doesn’t make economic sense

President Bush certainly is not afraid to rush into situations where angels might fear to tread. But it is unclear if this willingness to embrace seemingly contradictory policies is due to quiet confidence in his administration’s abilities or to simple…

This energy policy could’ve done Bush–and us–a lot more good

Poor President Bush is getting hammered as hard on his energy plan by conservatives as by liberals. The libertarian Cato Institute correctly termed the proposals “a smorgasbord of handouts and subsidies for virtually every energy lobby in Washington.” What could…

Now the serious talk starts weighing Social Security vs. individual accounts

Would Americans as a whole be better off if the existing Social Security system were partially supplanted by a system of individual accounts? Who would gain, and who would be worse off? How might such a shift affect the national…

Economic indicators are just that–indicators and not precise science

If recent news headlines about the economy seem confusing, don’t worry. The situation is both understandable and normal. Two weeks ago, many economic gurus quoted by the media predicted that the government would show no economic growth for the first…