Canadian officials say they have started to control the country’s wildfire in Alberta, following the evacuation of 88,000 people. On the bright side, changing winds have diverted the flames from the oil-boom town of Fort McMurray after oil production from the...
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Righting Regulation
In the 2007 song “Planet Earth,” the recently departed Prince sings, “Fifty years from now, what will they say about us here? Did we take care of the water and the fragile atmosphere?” What took place at the United Nations on...
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A combination of low commodity prices and regulatory action has crushed fossil fuel companies’ ability to operate. These comments comes after two more energy companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, joining dozens of others. Coal producer Peabody Energy...
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Market structure has been evolving at a rapid pace. Figuring out how investors will be best protected and ensuing that markets operate in an efficient and effective fashion is something that regulators and other involved in the financial sector are considering....
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The price of oil is so important to global economies because it impacts economic sectors outside of the energy space. For example, in 2015, the US had record car and truck sales (17.7 million vehicles sold versus 17.1 million in 2000)....
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Politics and Prose
There’s a line repeated in the old Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid movie as trackers followed the two outlaws: “Who are those guys?” It may well be the first response of a majority of viewers of the White House SOTU...
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President Obama has a unique and final opportunity Tuesday to instill confidence and foster bipartisanship during his State of the Union address. It requires a genuine desire to work with Congress—far more than we have seen from the Administration in years....
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We’ve Learned from Being Burned As a former regulator, I know up close and personal how difficult it is to strike the right balance. When the US first implemented them in 2007, there were ripples in the US market and to...
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Bart discusses which regulations will hinder the markets in 2016.
Consumer Corner
Thankfully, fresh sweeping financial reforms and a new kid on the block are cleaning up a dirty and fundamentally flawed financial system that impacted nearly everyone for years. Since the 1980’s, virtually everything purchased by everybody on credit (a student, car...
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