TOKYO — As recession-wary Americans adapt to a new frugality, Japan offers a peek at how thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect. The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy. Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990. The Takigasaki family in the Tokyo suburb of Nakano goes further to save a yen or two. Although the family has a comfortable nest egg, Hiroko Takigasaki carefully rations her vegetables. When she goes through too many in a given week, she reverts to her cost-saving standby: cabbage stew. ‘You can make almost anything with some cabbage, and perhaps some potato, says Mrs. Takigasaki, 49, who works part time at a home for people with […]
Trying to predict the world’s climate a century from now is an inexact science. The most recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures could rise between 2 and 11.5 degrees F during the 21st century, depending on an array of variables. Skeptics of global warming use that kind of imprecision to support a wait-and-see approach: since scientists may be overestimating the impact of global warming, perhaps policy makers ought to delay carbon cuts or other action until the science catches up. Recently, researchers had a chance to look back at the IPCC’s early predictions, and it turns out that the panel had indeed made some mistakes - it had significantly underestimated the rate of increase in global carbon emissions. Scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb. 14 reported that worldwide CO2 emission rates had risen more precipitously between 2000 and 2008 than the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, thanks largely to an unexpected increase in coal-burning in developing countries like China. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.) ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered […]
The current discussion about energy in Idaho reminds me of the story of two campers who were wakened one night by the sound of a hungry grizzly bear pillaging their campsite. While one camper is carefully putting on his running shoes, the other hisses, ‘Are you crazy? You can’t outrun a grizzly bear!’ The first camper calmly points out, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you!’ For much of our history, we have enjoyed the comfortable campsite of low electric rates (currently the lowest in the country) while at the same time, living in fear of the bear lurking nearby who wants to increase rates through higher fuel costs, increased capital costs or expenses related to integration of intermittent renewable generation. We fear that higher rates will be disastrous to the business community and, hence, economic development in general. The stark reality is that our rates will go up, no matter what we do. Whether we add new generation in the form of natural gas turbine generators or buy power on the open market, regulatory forces (in the form of carbon-based regulations) and fuel price fluctuations will act like the bear and […]
A new study that comes from the University Of Michigan reveals a direct association between fast food restaurants and stroke. The study was conducted in Nueces County Texas. It showed that individuals residing in areas where fast food restaurants are abundant appear to have an increased chance of suffering from a stroke than those that live in an area where those eateries are not as wide spread. Previously, fast food consumption has been linked to higher incidences of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and liver damage. The research also showed a one percent increased risk of stroke for each individual fast food eatery in the area. The results of the data were posted on a white board and shown during the International Stroke conference 2009 which took place on Thursday. Dr. Morgenstern has commented on the results of the study. ‘What we don’t know is whether fast food actually increased the risk because of its contents or whether fast-food restaurants are a marker of unhealthy neighborhoods. Morgenstern also wants to find out whether there is something completely unique in these counties that is has caused the poor health. He says that areas with lots of fast food joints should be […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama will seek to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term, according to an administration official. Most of the savings would come from spending less on the war in Iraq, raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 a year and streamlining government, the official told CNN. The president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2010 projects that the estimated $1.3 trillion deficit he inherited from the Bush administration will be halved to $533 billion by 2013, or from 9.2 percent of the gross domestic product to 3 percent, the official said. The official declined to speak on the record because Obama has yet to unveil the proposal, which was expected to happen Thursday. In his weekly address Saturday, Obama pledged to ‘release a budget that’s sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.’ From 2001 to 2008, Congress appropriated about $173 billion in taxpayer funds toward war-related efforts in Afghanistan and $657 billion in Iraq, according to estimates by the Congressional Research Service. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
