Crime rates should drop during good economic times and rise during bad ones. So very soon if you are walking the streets of New York late at night, you may be at risk of being mugged by gangs of investment bankers, driven to acts of desperate violence by the travails of the credit markets. This [...]

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act passed last year, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has to raise the fuel economy standard for cars and light trucks to a fleet-wide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The act also gives the DOT the authority to fix interim standards. The government’s recent proposal to [...]

We’ve all heard the old saw, when you’re given lemons, make lemonade. The travel industry is no doubt attempting to do just that, given the current economic woes and high gas prices. The Smith Travel Research Global is reporting hotel occupancy rates are down 3.9% to 66.7% for the first half of 2008 in the [...]

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy published a report entitled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management. Called “The Hirsch Report” after its lead author, Robert Hirsch, its purpose was to lay out a governmental strategy for softening the effects of peak oil and its aftermath: that is, the chaos and [...]

Most people probably don’t realize (I didn’t) that the U.S. has a strategic grain reserve. Well had. It’s almost entirely depleted. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) operates the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) which, according to the USDA site, performs the following functions:
“The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is a Government-owned [...]

Exploding gas prices, a housing burst and the shaky state of the stock market have all combined to create a tenuous economy that has already had a direct impact on travelers and vacationers in the U.S. In addition to the weak dollar with respect to the euro, the cost of flying across the pond seems [...]

At over $4 a gallon, gas is definitely putting the pinch on consumers. Wired writes, “No Mocha For Me, Thanks. I’ve Gotta Buy Gas.” We aren’t sweating the little things; we’re simply cutting them out.
The media is self-centered. It loves to write about itself without regard for whether its audience is [...]