Skip to content
Today's Reading
Recommended Reading: May 15, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Thursday, 15 May 2008

Why high oil prices are not squeezing us more: The “energy intensity” of growth – the amount of oil, coal and gas needed to produce an increase in gross domestic product – has halved since the 1970s, reflecting greater energy efficiency and the shift away from heavy manufacturing.

If you have four and a half minutes to spare, watch this: Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why -- though we want to know more about the world than ever -- the US media is actually showing less. Eye-opening stats and graphs.

10 ways the Chinese Internet is different from yours.

A new poll shows that 85% of U.S. adults agree that the presidential candidates should participate in a debate on how science can be used to tackle America's major challenges. The poll found no difference between Democrats and Republicans on this question.

That China has yet to grasp the downside of its imminent superpower status is evident from a plaintive e-mail doing the rounds of internet forums.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 May 2008 )
 
Will Bernanke Ignore Rising Shoe Prices Too? E-mail
Written by Deborah Evans   
Tuesday, 13 May 2008

Bernanke and Shoe Prices
Photo:Seite-3, Creative Commons, Flickr

Forget Iron Man and Superman. A new super hero has emerged; spawn of the creature from Jekyll Island–Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke!


Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 14 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 9, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Thursday, 08 May 2008

Links to interesting articles for ThePanelist.com readers...

Poverty and a billion starving people in Africa? Whisked away like dust. Overpopulation and water shortages? Waft, waft. Global warming and climate change? A little brush and they're gone. Jeffrey Sachs explains how to save the world.

The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.

The financial crises of capitalism, written by Samuel Brittan at The Financial Times.

Economic Recession? It's a Guy Thing.

The global free market for food and energy is facing its biggest threat in decades as a host of countries push through draconian measures to hold down prices, raising fears of a new "resource nationalism" that could endanger world food security, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph.

Have a great weekend!

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Friday, 09 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 8, 2007 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Links to must-read articles for ThePanelist.com readers. Enjoy!

Going green doesn't have to be as complicated as it sounds: 50 ways to help the planet.

The Rockefellers want ExxonMobil to think again on green issues but increasingly oil giants look to government for leadership.

Polluted, poisonous and immune to popular efforts to enforce a clean-up: Tai Lake is a metaphor for the state of China's politics, says The Economist.

"This contrast between the official government statistics and day-to-day reality has led to a boomlet in skepticism about what the government is up to," says David Leonhardt at The New York Times. "So when the new inflation numbers come out next week, they will indeed be misleading. They will be artificially high."

A cartoon explaining the stimulus package...

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Thursday, 08 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 7, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Links to must-read articles for ThePanelist.com readers...


Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 07 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 6, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Monday, 05 May 2008

The bad news is that as markets stabilize, chances for fundamental financial reform may be slipping away. As a result, the next crisis will probably be worse than this one, says Paul Krugman at The New York Times.

Graphic: An Average Consumer's Spending.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values, says Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try, the more we step outside our comfort zone, the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Sales of scotch whisky are regarded by some as a fair, if unusual, barometer of economic prospects and how confident people feel about the present and the future.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 5, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Sunday, 04 May 2008

This is one of the best pieces of financial journalism you're ever going to read. The next bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow's big crash, published by Harpers Magazine.

According to George Will: "The future has a way of arriving unannounced". That was before equity analysts, says Satyajit Das.

Tiger economies are snapping at U.S. heels: Observers expect the US to deepen its ties with India, which Washington views as a counterweight to China.

Coal has long been a cheap and plentiful fuel source for utilities and their customers, helping to keep American electric bills relatively low. But rising worldwide demand is turning American coal into another hot global commodity, with domestic buyers having to compete with buyers from countries like Germany and Japan.

A funny take on the economic stimuls package.

Have a great week!

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: May 1, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Thursday, 01 May 2008

It’s a myth that the world’s oil is running out, says Irwin Stelzer at The London Times.

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy, says Thomas Friedman in the New York Times

Do Americans worry more about climate change, America’s dependence on foreign oil or the cost of filling their petrol tanks?

The Fed is trying to promote the notion that it is not entirely useless, that its actions do achieve a reaction, says Alan Kohler at BusinessSpectator.com.

Why conservatives are happier than liberals.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
 
Fed Lowers Interest Rates; Indifferent to Inflation E-mail
Written by Deborah Evans   
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
“I want to know who fills up their gas tank.” – Rick Santelli, CNBC’s Bond Market Commentator
Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: April 29, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Tuesday, 29 April 2008

How to win the war on global warming, according to Time Magazine.

An excellent list of statistics: What's happening in the world right now?

Energy experts have dismissed the presidential candidates' plans for lowering gas prices, and say it'll be a decade before we can exert downward pressure on the price of gas.

Come on Hillary. Enough is enough.

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: April 24, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Thursday, 24 April 2008

European and Japanese leaders at their annual summit in Tokyo have called for "ambitious and binding" targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, generally the dirtiest fuel on earth.

China stock exchange investors suffer from spectacular bear market.

When will we ever learn? It's education that counts, says David Wighton at The London Times.

Under its new boss Disney has staged an impressive creative turnaround—and is making synergy work.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg
Hugg
Reddit
Spurl
Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 April 2008 )
 
Recommended Reading: April 23, 2008 E-mail
Written by Eben Esterhuizen   
Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Oil prices rose above $116 a barrel last week, setting another record for the world’s most indispensable energy commodity. What was striking about this latest milestone was what didn’t happen: there was no shortage of oil, no sudden embargo, no exporter turning off its spigot.

The subprime mortgage crisis in technicolor.

An innovative website using Wikipedia-like collaborative software has given people around the world to design the perfect -- if sadly fictional -- candidate for the United States presidency.

Will it be possible to retain a political consensus in high-income countries in favour of a liberalized and globally integrated economy? How do we persuade citizens that the rise of the emerging countries, the brightest story of our era, is to be welcomed, rather than resented or even resisted, when what they experience is financial disarray, falling house prices, recession and soaring costs of essential commodities?

And lastly, the stupidest business decisions in history.

Tag it:
YahooBuzz
Stumble
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Digg