| May 1 |
- 500,000 new jobs -- are we supposed to be impressed?
- Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson tells Wolf Blitzer the economic stimulus plan will result in half a million new jobs. It's about time.
- My Laughing Buddha is smirking
- Extinguish desire? What a joke. This fat man just wants a belly rub and a chortle.
- A paltry $11 billion profit for Exxon
- It's all gloom and doom for the biggest oil company on the planet. Despite near-record revenue, analysts are discouraged.
- Who pays the most for gas?
- Answer: Turkey. But that's not stopping traffic in Istanbul. Plus: The Prius continues to stomp all over the Ford Explorer
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| May 2 |
- When do we know the worst is over?
- The April jobs report: Not so bad. The price of oil: Down just a bit. The credit crunch: Subsiding?
- Watch "The Love Guru": Go to hell
- The punishment promised by Hindu fundamentalists for those who merely view the Mike Myers comedy is no joke.
- The economic "stimulus" bonanza needs a new name
- Forget about that shopping spree -- the President says rebate checks will help us cope with rising energy and food prices. Hey, it's not as humiliating as food stamps
- Who needs a fancy hybrid? Get a camel!
- Don't call it a comeback: In Rajasthan, the rising price of oil means camels are a hot commodity
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| May 5 |
- Hillary Clinton throws economists off the bus
- But it's not just the dismal scientists she is disavowing with her charges of oil market manipulation.
- Gas-guzzling China
- Those SUVs Americans aren't buying anymore? Ship 'em to Shanghai.
- Even Las Vegas gets the blues
- Revenues are down, disproving the "gambling is recession proof" theory. But hotel rooms are up, up, up
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| May 6 |
- Now, Paul Krugman throws economists off the bus
- His colleagues are making too big a deal about Clinton's gas tax holiday proposal, he says. Where's the solidarity, Paul?
- Peak oil explains lack of UFOs
- Why is there no evidence of alien space-faring civilizations? Maybe it's because the cost of jet-fuel got too high
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| May 7 |
- David Lereah takes a turn as Chicken Little
- The former optimist in chief for the National Association of Realtors is no longer a font of housing hope.
- Genetic modification kills sex drive in trout
- British fishermen are jubilant: The altered fish are easier to catch.
- The general election and the economy
- If a down economy spells doom for the incumbent party, why is McCain doing so well in national polls? Paul Krugman has a possible explanation.
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| May 8 |
- Are we in a recession or not?
- The president's top economic advisor says all's well, and Wal-Mart reports decent April sales. But a closer look at the data shows that the economy has been steadily slowing since January.
- A salute to Anacharsis Cloots
- So what if imagining that there were no borders got the 18th century "Orator of the Human Race" a date with the guillotine? His heart was in the right place.
- Are laptop PCs the environmentally correct choice?
- They use less power, and they are gradually replacing desktops everywhere, but small is not necessarily beautiful.
- Here comes the polysilicon sun
- Solar panel production boomed in 2007, even with high prices for a key resource. But now polysilicon prices are beginning to drop...
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| May 9 |
- The indie-rock fall and rise of R.E.M.
- Overheard on college radio: A home-coming of sorts for an old-school "alternative"
- The sacrificial mosquito fish of Contra Costa County
- The cycle of life: From home foreclosures to bird droppings.
- Economics 101: Obama vs. McCain
- And then there were two. In a speech delivered by Obama in Oregon, Hillary Clinton is yesterday's news
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| May 12 |
- Tough times for pawnshop operators
- Bad times are supposed to be good for the people who help you hock your jewelry. But not this time around?
- The peak oil culture wars
- Do conservatives oppose conservation because they don't like taking the bus? Or because they're terrified that those dirty hippies were right all along?
- More rice than ever before
- The 2008 rice harvest will be the biggest of all time. That's a good thing too, because our appetites keep growing
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| May 13 |
- China's earthquake and the Mandate of Heaven
- In Chinese history, natural disasters are often accompanied by a change in dynasty. Don't hold your breath
- Ben "Iron Man" Bernanke
- The "most powerful Fed chairman ever"? What happened to that unassuming, oh-so-serious economics professor?
- How to stop illegal Canadian immigration
- Tom Tancredo says we need a fence on the northern border, too. At least one Canadian vociferously agrees.
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| May 14 |
- A new, improved bubble-popping Fed
- If Greenspan were dead, he'd be turning in his grave. Bernanke and Co. may be considering a significant change in how the Federal Reserve manages the economy
- A Strategic Petroleum Reserve flip-flop
- On second thought, maybe halting purchases of oil for the SPR could make a real difference.
- Wal-Mart's "Faded Glory"
- Disposable, foreign-manufactured Americana: This brand name speaks the truth.
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| May 15 |
- Connecting the dots between Big Tobacco and DDT
- Who is responsible for the campaign against Rachel Carson? Re-introducing Mr. Steve "Junk Science" Milloy
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| May 19 |
- "The Man Who Loved China"
- Who knew that the greatest English-language historian of Chinese science was an avid nudist and accordion player?
- New world consumers
- Will a shopping spree in the rest of the world change American views on trade?
- Life at the bottom
- In Sacramento County, the housing market is suddenly booming again. All that was required was for prices to come down -- a lot.
- What's the matter with China?
- Salon's readers take up "the Needham question" and come up with some provocative explanations as to why China had no Industrial Revolution.
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| May 20 |
- How is the housing bust like Hillary Clinton's campaign?
- The real estate industry and the Senator from New York both blame the media for their woes
- Fun and games with inflation numbers
- Why does the U.S. government say energy prices fell in April, when everybody knows they're going up, up, up?
- Big Pharma and the bullies
- After getting kicked around by the likes of Thailand and Brazil, the pharmaceutical industry suddenly realizes, hey, maybe there's money to be made by lowering prices.
- The United Auto Workers vs. California
- Attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "discriminate" against the makers of SUVS, complains the UAW.
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| May 21 |
- Did a coding error contribute to the credit crunch?
- The Financial Times reports that flawed code resulted in Moody's mistakenly giving high ratings to structured financial products
- Newt Gingrich's fantasy land
- The former speaker of the house blames high gas prices on left-leaning politicians who want to save the environment. Even if he's right, he's still deluded.
- The rules of globalization
- The real threat to the global trading system isn't posed by anti-globalization activists, says Dani Rodrik
- American Airlines' plan to save the planet
- How charging fees for checked baggage will stop climate change.
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| May 22 |
- The Wall Street Peak Oil Journal
- As crude prices set another record, the Journal publishes its gloomiest assessment yet of the oil market
- A Chinese aircraft carrier paradox
- Was the 17th century admiral whose name has reportedly been given to a Chinese naval vessel a traitor or a patriot? Or both?
- Paul Wolfowitz's next disaster
- What's a guy do after orchestrating a failed war and bringing the World Bank to a screeching halt?
- Even Congresswomen get the foreclosure blues
- A newly elected Long Beach Democrat walks away from her mortgage; neighbors infuriated by unmown grass
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| May 23 |
- When corn senators attack!
- Defenders of ethanol, unite -- you have nothing to lose, except maybe your subsidies.
- Crashing the economic stimulus party
- The rise in oil prices may cancel out those government checks
- Can Obama do more than "nudge"?
- Government by Obamanomics is surmised to be a government that suggests and encourages, rather than intervenes. But will that be enough if the economy gets worse?
- China's tofu construction
- A rescue worker's lament while searching the rubble in Sichuan. Plus: Three minutes of no searching, in honor of the dead
- A jumbo loan metaphor
- What do the politics of Oregon and Kentucky have to do with how big a home loan Freddie Mac is allowed to purchase?
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| May 27 |
- Phosphate gold
- The price of fertilizer is rising faster than the price of gasoline. That's saying something
- Stop your motor running
- The summer driving season just began, but if spring's example is any indicator, Americans are going to stay home. And the world says thank you.
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| May 28 |
- John McCain's subprime taint
- His economic advisor, Phil Gramm, is a banking industry lobbyist working to shape mortgage reform legislation. Should we care? Isn't that what Republicans are supposed to do?
- McCain explains why the U.S. is on the "wrong track"
- Americans are upset with the country's direction, he says, because Congress won't approve free trade deals. Is the man even paying attention?
- Let the (prison) sunshine in
- At California's green bleeding edge: Solar powered penitentiaries
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| May 29 |
- Soap opera social engineering
- In Brazil, the data suggests that prime-time programming contributed to a national decline in fertility rates.
- It's a gas gas gas
- An exploration of record U.S. gas prices
- A boneheaded Bush administration lecture on science
- The secretary of agriculture instructs the rest of the world to pay more attention to scientific fact. Who is he kidding?
- Introducing ... Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm?
- Guess who made sure the U.S. government wasn't watching when Wall Street went bonkers with credit derivatives.
- Hope in the midst of Chinese pollution?
- James Fallows says all is not lost in the battle to save China's environment. But the odds sure look daunting.
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| May 30 |
- Who let the oil market be manipulated?
- Now that the federal government is finally requiring more disclosure from energy traders, we can start pointing fingers. Phil Gramm, the white courtesy telephone is ringing, again.
- All things gas-price-related considered
- A time out from blogging while HTWW visits the old media
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