Silver linings of a slow-growth economy

By Kate Sheppard There's growing frustration about the administration's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with complaints that officials have been sluggish in demanding BP be more transparent and hesitant to criticize the company's inability to plug the well. The administration clearly faces a number of tough choices here with few right answers, but there's one area where it could be weighing in on specifics but haven't: the liability cap on oil spills.

Last week, I agreed to do an interview on OilPrice.Com. The initial interview was conducted over the phone, with follow-up emails. The interview first appeared on OilPrice and is repeated below. Introduction:

Imagine this corporate nightmare: activists dominating your annual shareholders’ meeting, sullying your brand over the Internet, discrediting you with politicians and agitating communities against you.

Yves here. This post is useful not simply for its discussion of the economics of green energy but also for showing how think tanks fabricate findings to support their political message. By Frank Ackerman, senior economist at Synapse Energy Economics, and a senior research fellow at GDAE at Tufts University. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

Big shippers, including Imperial Oil Ltd, Exxon Mobil Corp, Suncor Energy Inc, Marathon Petroleum Corp and Phillips 66, have all filed motions with the regulator in protest CALGARY — Enbridge Inc and its crude oil pipeline customers are battling over a plan by the company to try to cut the over-booking of capacity on the massive export network that has played a role in the deep discounting of Canadian crude prices.

By Dividend Stocks Online:The best energy stocks have a tradition of consistently raising their dividends and distributions. Even in a weakened economy crude oil prices haven been rising and the outlook remains strong due to increased demand and inflationary concerns. We are expecting to see slow but steady global growth over the next few years which should continue to fuel demand for energy services and profits for energy companies.

ON FRIDAY, I attended an event at the Brookings Institution called "State Roads to Economic Recovery". The gist of the programme was pretty clear. Washington is gridlocked. State governments are slashing away at core spending. What can be done to draw some growth-supporting policies out of this mess? If useful actions are likely to emerge from governments, the assumption seemed to be, it's at the state level where the policy experiments will take place, and where good ideas will be found.