Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Spectacular Drop in Renewable Energy Costs Leads to Record Global Boost
June 13th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — From Trump Pulls U.S. Out of Paris Climate Agreement: Petrofascism is alive and well in the U.S., but it’s too late to stop solar and wind. Trump’s energy policy is going up against the mathematical certainty that the costs associated with solar and wind energy […]
China’s Clean Energy Ambition Floats on Abandoned Coal Mine
June 12th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Bloomberg: China’s ambitions to dominate new energy technologies are unfolding at the site of an abandoned coal mine about 300 miles (483 kilometers) northwest of Shanghai. There, in Anhui province, Sungrow Power Supply Co. has built the world’s largest floating solar farm with 166,000 panels […]
Tesla’s Vice President of Solar Products: Competitors Are, “Kind of Fucked”
June 7th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — The quote in the title is referring to Tesla’s new solar roofing products, but as someone who sells more conventional solar products, the same can be said about the storage sector. I recently wrote: The storage industry needs to deal with the Tesla reality and […]
Life Inside the ‘Coffin Cubicles’ of Hong Kong
June 7th, 2017EG emailed, “I finally found a future retirement home for teachers like me as well as other cogs in the machine!” Via: Guardian: Photographer Benny Lam has documented the suffocating living conditions in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, recording the lives of these hidden communities. Research Credit: EG
Cost to Keep Each Prisoner Locked Up in California Per Year: $75,560
June 6th, 2017Madness. Via: Los Angeles Times: Gov. Jerry Brown’s spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because voters in November approved earlier releases for many inmates. The price for each inmate […]
Almost Half of Americans Die Nearly Broke
June 3rd, 2017Via: USA Today: Americans aren’t known for being great savers. In a recent GoBankingRates study, 69% of adults admitted to having less than $1,000 in the bank, while 34% said they actually don’t have any savings at all. But apparently, this collective lack of savings doesn’t get all that much better with age. A study […]
Why Jails Are Booming
June 2nd, 2017Via: The Atlantic: A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative examines the reasons behind this explosive growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s not driven by crime. Crime rates nationwide have dropped over the past few decades, as have conviction rates in court. So then why do jails keep swelling? It basically comes down to two things, […]
U.S. Ranked 114th out of 163 Countries Surveyed on Global Peace Index
June 1st, 2017Via: Newsweek: The United States has plummeted on a global ranking of countries based on levels of corruption, violent crime, racism and respect for human rights. The Global Peace Index 2017, issued annually by the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), shows the U.S declining 11 places in the global rankings to 114th out of […]
‘About Half of All U.S. Retail Jobs Could Vanish Due to Computerization’
June 1st, 2017Via: Kansas City Star: Consider this before you assume you can have a long or lucrative career in the retail industry: Up to half of all current jobs in the retail sector are likely to vanish because of e-commerce, automation of jobs and the closing of brick-and-mortar stores. Millions of retail jobs — as we […]
Microsoft Co-Founder Built the World’s Largest Plane to Launch Rockets Into Space
May 31st, 2017Via: The Verge: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has spent the last six years working on a giant aircraft capable of launching rockets to space. Today, his company Stratolaunch Systems literally rolled that plane out of its hangar in the Mojave Desert for the first time ever. It’s called the Stratolaunch aircraft, and it’s massive. The […]
