Economics

Wind Farm Back-of-the-Envelope Economic Analysis

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By Larry F. Brown, PhD – Re-Blogged From WUWT

We visited a wind farm in southern Utah recently. I’ve always been curious about the costs, profitability, and physical size of these things as well as the footprint and environmental impact. I had 3 meetings with the man in charge of maintenance of the wind farm, a landowner who leases land accommodating 4 of the turbines, and a man who works in the industry in Colorado – and did some internet/newspaper research.

The maintenance superintendent told me they have 27 towers, that the installation cost was about $2 million each, and that each turbine is rated at 2.3 megawatts/hr but produces an average of 1.3 megawatts/hr (= 1,300 kW/hr). The blades are 187 ft long so the total height is nearly 400 feet high, and the tower at the base is about 13 ft in diameter encapsulated in huge quantity of concrete. The project pays about $1 million in taxes to the community each year and has a 20-year lease.

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Issues Important to Voters By Party

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By Tim Pearce – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Democratic messaging on climate change has been stunted throughout the midterm election cycle, and most candidates are turning to other issues to connect with voters, the New York Times reports.

Health care and the economy consistently top polls of key issues and social security, immigration and guns usually perform well too.

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War On Americans

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By Gary Christenson – Re-Blogged From The Deviant Investor

Wars benefit the political and financial elite. Most wars are on-going, whether they include formal Congressional declaration or military actions. The following wars will continue.

  • War on drugs.
  • War on poverty.
  • War on cash.
  • War on reality based statistics.

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It’s Not Stagflation, But Inflationary Impoverishment

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

It is a matter of personal interest that it was my uncle, Iain Macleod, who invented the term stagflation shortly before he was appointed shadow chancellor in 1965. It is no longer used in its original context. From Hansard (the official record of parliamentary debates) 17 November that year:

We now have the worst of both worlds —not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of “stagflation” situation and history in modern terms is indeed being made.

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Economics 101: Who Sets Prices?

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

Since the advent of nineteenth century socialism, politicians and economists in the centre ground have argued for a balanced approach, where vital services are provided by the state, and capitalism is left to provide the rest. Vital services in a modern economy are taken to include pensions, unemployment and disability benefits, healthcare and education. Most states also provide communications, such as rail and road infrastructure, electrical grids and perhaps telecommunications. They often own and operate on behalf of the people utilities, such as the railways, ports, electricity and water.

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Why Economists Cannot Forecast Recessions

usissuescom GDP & Employment, Monetary Policy , , , , ,

By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

The purpose of this article is to draw the widest attention to the chronic inability of the economic establishment to forecast recessions. Next time you hear an economist make a prediction on mainstream media, your default assumption should be he or she is simply wrong.

Why do I allege this? An IMF economist, Prakash Loungani, did some interesting research in 2000 about the accuracy of economists’ forecasts. Using data taken from a publication called Consensus Forecasts (published by Consensus Economics), which is widely used as a source of independent estimates of economic growth by individual governments, Loungani found that of the 60 recessions recorded since 1989 in the 63 countries sampled, only two were forecast in April the year before and two-thirds remained undetected in the April of the year they occurred. Furthermore, analysts’ forecasts emanating from both private and public sector economists were little different, and had a strong bias towards optimism.

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