Castro could drill off Florida coast
Who can blame him? Castro has for years looked for new opportunities to develop his economy in the face of our trade embargo. He could only expect to rely on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's oil and gas giveaway for so long. So, with the intention of claiming billions of dollars in new revenues and reducing his country's dependence on foreign energy, Castro has taken to the high seas in an effort to acquire and produce as much oil and gas as he can. Continue reading “Castro could drill off Florida coast”
Category: Economy & Business
Venezuela buys Russian oil to avoid defaulting on deals
FT.com / World / Americas – Venezuela buys Russian oil to avoid defaulting on deals
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has struck a $2bn deal to buy about 100,000 barrels a day of crude oil from Russia until the end of the year.
Under President Hugo Chávez, PDVSA's oil output has declined by about 60 per cent, a trend analysts say has accelerated in the past year because of poor technical management.
Mr Chávez's push to extend his influence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean with promises of cheap oil for friends and allies may be overstretching PDVSA's finances, however. Venezuela currently supplies about 300,000 barrels per day of oil and products to Cuba, Nicaragua and others under favourable long-term financing arrangements. This week, Venezuela signed a deal to send oil to town mayors in Nicaragua aligned with the leftwing Sandinista party. Continue reading “Venezuela buys Russian oil to avoid defaulting on deals”
World’s 10 Best-Selling Drugs
Wired News: World's 10 Best-Selling Drugs
Pfizer's cholesterol pill Lipitor remains the best-selling drug in the world for the fifth year in a row. Its annual sales were $12.9 billion, more than twice as much as its closest competitors: Plavix, the blood thinner from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis; Nexium, the heartburn pill from AstraZeneca; and Advair, the asthma inhaler from GlaxoSmithKline.
Click here for a slide show of the top 10 best-selling drugs.
A guide to womenomics
Women and the world economy | A guide to womenomics | Economist.com
“WHY can't a woman be more like a man?” mused Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady”. Future generations might ask why a man can't be more like a woman. In rich countries, girls now do better at school than boys, more women are getting university degrees than men are and females are filling most new jobs. Arguably, women are now the most powerful engine of global growth.
In poor countries too, the under-utilisation of women stunts economic growth. A study last year by the World Economic Forum found a clear correlation between sex equality (measured by economic participation, education, health and political empowerment) and GDP per head.
In particular, there is strong evidence that educating girls boosts prosperity. It is probably the single best investment that can be made in the developing world. Not only are better educated women more productive, but they raise healthier, better educated children.
Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye
Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye – New York Times
Even economists striving hardest to find evidence of immigration's effect on domestic workers are finding that, at most, the surge of illegal immigrants probably had only a small impact on wages of the least-educated Americans — an effect that was likely swamped by all the other things that hit the economy, from the revolution in technology to the erosion of the minimum wage's buying power.
U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed
U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed
The document is the first attempt to spell out in some detail how the government would detect and respond to an outbreak, and continue functioning through what could be an 18-month crisis, which in a worst-case scenario could kill 1.9 million Americans.
How the Bikini Liberated Spain
How world capital of tourism was built on a bikini – World – Times Online
The excommunication process was dropped. The bikini stayed. Some see this, at least symbolically, as a defining moment in recent Spanish history. It marked the beginning of a timid sexual revolution and helped to take the Catholicism out of national Catholicism. The tourists, more importantly, had the power to outface the Church. They brought not just money, but the seeds of change. They also brought the fresh air of democracy. There was no turning back.
With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs
Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs – New York Times
At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too. But Brazil is already there.
This country expects to become energy self-sufficient this year, meeting its growing demand for fuel by increasing production from petroleum and ethanol. Already the use of ethanol, derived in Brazil from sugar cane, is so widespread that some gas stations have two sets of pumps, marked A for alcohol and G for gas.
Ethanol can be made through the fermentation of many natural substances, but sugar cane offers advantages over others, like corn. For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology here and other Brazilian research institutes.
Globalizing Good Government
Globalizing Good Government – New York Times
Globalization's critics argue that a more open world economy sets off a race to the bottom by encouraging countries to jettison protections for consumers, workers and the environment. In reality, the opposite is true. If our data demonstrate anything, it is that globalization prompts a race to the top by pushing countries to abandon policies that burden their economies in favor of those that fuel growth and economic opportunity
Make Mexico Rich
Jonah Goldberg on Mexico on National Review Online
You want to solve the illegal-immigration problem? Well, here's the answer: Make Mexico rich.
For all the talk about coming up with "comprehensive" immigration reform, the root causes of the supply are left out of the debate about immigrant supply and demand. If we're going to be "comprehensive," why not tie a fixed but significant level of legal Mexican immigration to greater free-market and anti-corruption reforms at home. Mexico's government feels increasingly free to lecture us about our domestic and economic priorities; it seems only fitting for us to take a more active interest in theirs as well.