Economics

A sturdy bicycle built of recycled cardboard and sold to the world’s poor for $20 apiece? This story broke in 2012, complete with a YouTube video of inventor Izhar Gafni toodling around his Israeli settlement town on a beautiful white prototype, the cardboard rendered surprisingly strong through an innovative combination of origami-style folds, glue, and varnish. But two years later, Read More ›

Just when you expect President Obama to moderate his domestic economic policies, which have stifled job growth and fostered an anemic recovery following the passage of his two signature pieces of legislation — the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Affordable Care Act — it gets worse. Now, after bringing banking and health care — about Read More ›

This article, published by The New York Times, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder: As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush flew in Ivy League social scientists for daylong seminars with his staff and carved out time for immersive brainstorming sessions he called “think weeks.” A voracious reader, he maintains a queue of 25 volumes on his Kindle (George Gilder’s Read More ›

With memories of OPEC’s oil embargo and the cartel’s ongoing ability to manipulate markets, it should be cause for celebration that the United States is on the cusp of energy independence and lower prices. So it is puzzling that President Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership have recently taken actions to hold up Keystone XL pipeline construction, which is key Read More ›

With memories of OPEC’s oil embargo and the cartel’s ongoing ability to manipulate markets, it should be cause for celebration that the U.S. is on the cusp of energy independence and lower prices. So it is puzzling that President Barack Obama chooses to holdup Keystone XL pipeline construction, which is one of the three legs of U.S. energy independence. Because Read More ›

After successfully bringing more than 30% of the U.S. economy — the health care and financial services industries — under political control during his first term, President Obama made it clear last week that a priority of his second term is to go after the energy sector — another 10.5%. The purpose of the White House’s orchestrated release of the Read More ›

This article is co-authored by Scott Powell, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Scott Tiefenthaler, a Houston-based seismic geophysicist. After some 40 years of OPEC cartel codependence, many Americans recognize the real and symbolic importance of the Keystone XL pipeline. It means greater freedom and security. So the recent decision to delay the pipeline construction also calls into Read More ›

After some 40 years of OPEC cartel codependence, many Americans recognize the symbolic importance of the Keystone XL pipeline. It means greater freedom and security. So the latest delay on the decision to go forward on the pipeline construction also calls into question the commitment of Washington to the vital and very achievable goal of energy independence for the United Read More ›

When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, energy independence was considered impossible, with imported oil accounting for 66 percent of the oil refined in the U.S. That predicament was a troublesome weak link in U.S. national security. But unexpectedly, with the technology-driven energy boom that began a half dozen years ago, that longstanding vulnerability is close to being remedied. Read More ›