The International Energy Administration (IEA) reported in “More Data, Less Energy: Making Network Standby More Efficient in Billions of Connected Devices” that the world’s 14 billion online electronic devices – such as set-top boxes, modems, printers, and game consoles –
Royal College of Surgeons issued a report that the British National Health Services (NHS) is denying life-saving operations because of age discrimination in defiance of the law. New data documents for the first time that across large areas of the
German lawmakers on July 3rd approved the introduction of the country’s first national minimum wage of $11.75 per hour. For the last decade, Germany’s greater “labor flexibility” allowed its economy to flourish, while most of the other European Union members’
California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) seems to have flunked her first major leadership test by failing to get Governor Brown’s water bond passed during one of California’s worst droughts. Following a failed attempt by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell
As Silicon Valley expands from the Internet of people to the Internet of Things, the failure of Detroit and Google to form a partnership to build self-driving cars is an instructive tale regarding the challenges Silicon Valley and industrial America
After the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on June 10 voted 4 to 1 to put a popular initiative to eliminate public employee defined-benefit pensions on the ballot, a coalition of public employee unions filed suit to prevent the initiative
Some public employees and elected officials might have been busy destroying their personal cell phones, tablets and computers this weekend after the California Supreme Court agreed to review if communications on privately owned electronic devices regarding a public matter are
Although MannKind Corporation (MNKD) finally won its decade-long fight for FDA approval to sell its Afrezza insulin therapy system in the U.S, most investors are disappointed that the powered drug inhaler must carry a warning label that it is not
Barclays Investment Bank Research recently downgraded the entire U.S. electric utility sector because they believe that “a confluence of declining cost trends in distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation and residential-scale power storage is likely to disrupt the status quo”
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported June 25th that the U.S. GDP in the first quarter of 2014 was a dismal -2.9%, despite unemployment being unchanged and personal income growing at a healthy 3.2% annual rate. According David Stockman,
The Islamic State of Syria and Sham (ISIS) and their Sunni tribal allies reached the strategic Mahmudiyah district southwest of Baghdad in large numbers on June 26th. Kurdish officials said that militants had seized the towns of Iskandariyah and Mahmudiyah.
The Obama Administration appears to be trying to balance its embrace of pro-carbon elimination of restriction against exporting U.S. domestically produced crude oil with an embrace of anti-carbon demands for radical increases in public investment and regulatory restrictions to combat
President Barack Obama used the power of his Executive Office “pen” Wednesday morning to allow the U.S. Commerce Department to issue a ruling that all but terminates a four-decade Congressional restriction against exporting U.S. domestically produced crude oil. The new
Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, a U.S. law firm that is known to work closely with hedge funds, requested a ruling for a “potential repudiation/moratorium event” by Argentina according to a letter dated June 20 to International Swaps and Derivatives
The US Geological Survey (USGS) ignited the Williston Basin oil boom in 2008 with its assessment of over two billion barrels of recoverable oil from the Bakken field but gave made no assessment of America’s Three Forks field to the
In response to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s rebuke last month that environmentalists “have never been helpful to me in producing good water policy,” the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) and the Pacific Institute recently published a new report claiming that “drought-plagued California
Syrian fighter bombers hit the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) targets in the Iraqi border town of Qaim in Anbar province on June 24th. The bombings were not the first time that the Syrian Air Force has acted against ISIS targets
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Los Angeles Municipal Code section prohibiting the use of a vehicle “as living quarters either overnight, day-by-day or otherwise” is unconstitutionally vague under the due process clause
The union membership rate of Americans working stands at 11.3%, or 14.5 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the last two decades, that percentage fell by 45%, despite a doubling in public employee unions. One of the major reasons
President Barack Obama used Uruguayan President Jose Mujica to deliver a letter to Cuban President Raul Castro on June 14th offering to negotiate an end the U.S. trade embargo, according to MercoPress. Obama supposedly first asked for help when Mujica
Argentina’s 42-year-old Minister of the Economy and former economics professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, is best known for his research papers that “reinterpreted Keynes from a Marxist perspective.” Having elected leaders with this type of intellectual
According to a Department of Health and Human Services report dated June 18th, the average “qualifying applicant” for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) on the federal marketplace received a $264 taxpayer subsidy and is only required to pay an $82 premium.
With the United States becoming a net energy exporter in early 2014 and expected to be the world’s largest producer of oil in 2015, the United States’ 40 years of investing massive financial resources and diplomatic clout to maintain stable
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition on June 16th by Argentina to stop a group of its sovereign bondholders from foreclosing on Argentine assets in the U.S. The decision effectively ends five years of legal battles in U.S. courts.
In the time since our April expose titled “California: Here Come the Oil Trains“, pressure has been mounting on state and federal officials to disclose the number of hundred tank-car trains that are rumbling into California carrying highly combustible crude
The College Board’s “Trends in Higher Education” report found that California had the lowest community college tuition and fees in the nation for the 2013 to 2014 term. The report also determined that many of California’s community college students don’t
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis just recognized California for being in the top half for GDP growth by state in 2013. Governor Jerry Brown likes to crow about California being a leader in nation economic recovery and job growth.
The California State Controller has announced that sales, income and corporate tax revenue came in $530.4 million, 7.8%, below budget for the month of May. That substantial budget miss comes less than two weeks after the California Bureau of State Audits
Behind the conservative’s dream-come-true victory of tenure laws and union contracts for California’s public schools teachers being ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a Los Angeles Superior Court, is an organization called Students Matter. The group is led and funded by Silicon Valley
Facing a July 8 trial decision that could wipe out most of its public employee pension benefits, the City of Stockton filed a revised bankruptcy restructuring plan last week that converts $544 million in life-time retiree healthcare benefits to a one-time payment of $5.1
The South China Morning Post reported that China intends to build an artificial island base in the disputed and oil-rich Spratly Islands between the coast of Vietnam and the Philippines. With the U.S. fracking boom destroying China’s comparative advantage in manufacturing from
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services disclosed that 6 million people have signed-up for healthcare from Medicaid since the rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The new data suggests that millions of the “8 million” Obamacare
Last week marked the one-year anniversary of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden‘s epic revelations of the existence of numerous global surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States)
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Hong Kong police are investigating a shipment of one ton of gold bullion, worth about $72 million, from Africa to a mainland China businessman after part of the consignment was swapped for
With the addition of 217,000 new jobs in May, the number of working Americans has finally exceeded the pre-recession peak of 138.4 million workers set in January of 2008. The job pace was slightly above analysts’ expectations, but the unemployment
To most observers, U.S. and European economic sanctions have had minimal success in discouraging Russia from covertly interfering in the Ukraine. But sanctions have exposed Russia’s dependence on America’s Visa and MasterCard for processing about 56% of all transactions in
IHS Consultants just published a report that lifting the U.S. oil export ban would cause U.S. crude oil production to rise by an average of 1.2 million barrels a day. The study argues that allowing crude oil exports would improve the fit
Standard and Poor’s Credit Rating Service announced on June 2nd that the ratings on New Jersey’s general obligation (GO) bonds, appropriation-backed, and moral obligation debt were placed on Credit Watch with negative implications. The warning means that S&P could lower the
The San Francisco Chronicle carried a story over the weekend that chastised Silicon Valley venture capitalists for failing to throw money at the marijuana industry the Chronicle says is “experiencing a 68 percent growth rate.” Despite the fact that venture
The Contra Costa Times reports that a group of about 60 protesters representing the Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) held California’s first demonstration against what the group calls “bomb trains” that will be bringing as much as 1.3 million gallons of