Caltrain’s Great New Electric Trains Replace Heavy Polluters

by Brad Templeton, Forbes, August 21, 2024.

Excerpt:

The numbers mean Caltrain was burning about 25 million gallons of diesel annually. But today, Caltrain has around 590,000 boardings/year and an average of 24,600 on weekdays. That means 3.5 gallons of diesel per boarding, on average, which is equivalent to 4 gallons of gasoline. Each round trip thus burned the equivalent 8 gallons of gasoline per person. A 30 miles each way round trip in a car with the average load of 1.5 people, which is less that one gallon per person in a Prius, and 2 gallons per person in a large SUV. Even if each passenger were given a personal Hummer H2 to drive, they would only burn 4.6 gallons for that round trip. If diesel Caltrain were a car, it would be class as one of the heaviest polluters per passenger.

Will Brazil’s Government Shut Down X for 20 Million Brazilians?

by David Inserra, Cato at Liberty, August 29, 2024.

Excerpt:

Brazilian courts have now formally threatened to shut down X (formerly Twitter) in Brazil because X will not silence or provide information on individuals critical of the current government, including individuals living in the United States.

And:

Also, now there are rumblings that Brazil may be targeting Starlink and SpaceX, which are only partially owned by Elon Musk. If true, this would mean that other unrelated US companies and investors are being hit by Brazil’s judicial authoritarians.

Simon Newcomb on Public Opinions and Economic Insights

by Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, August 29, 2024.

Excerpt:

Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) is largely unknown today, but he was a highly prominent economist back in the day: as one example, he was active in the disputes that led to the founding of the American Economic Association back in 1885. In July 1893, he published an essay on “The Problem of Economic Education” for the prominent (both then and now!) Quarterly Journal of Economics. The essay argues that there are basic insights of economics–well-known as of 1893–that are largely unknown or ignored by the general public. What I found thought-provoking was that a number of these insights appear equally unknown to much of the public, as well as to many policymakers, here in the third decade of the 21st century.

And from Newcomb:

Before such a thing as economic science was known arose the theory of the “balance of trade.” The fundamental doctrine of this theory was that trade was advantageous or disadvantageous to a nation according as the value of its exports exceeded or fell short of the value of its imports. Accordingly, in the nomenclature of the time, an unfavorable balance of trade or state of credit meant one in which the imports were supposed to exceed the exports, and a favorable balance the contrary. An immediate corollary from this view was that trade between two nations could not be advantageous to both, because the values which each exported to the other could not both be greater than those received from the other. …

For a century and a half the doctrine entertained and taught by economists is that there can be no trade between two nations which is not advantageous to both; that men do not buy or sell unless what they receive is to them more valuable than what they give in exchange; and that what is true of the individual man is, in this respect, true of the nation. And yet the combined arguments of economists for a hundred years have not sufficed to change the nomenclature or modify the ideas of commercial nations upon the subject. … The terms ” favorable ” and ” unfavorable,” as applied to the supposed balance of trade, still mean what they did before Adam Smith was born. We might well tremble for the political fate of any statesman who should publicly maintain that our exports would, in the long run, substantially balance our imports, no matter what policy we adopted; and that, if this equality could be disturbed, the advantage would be on the side of the nation which imported the greater values.