.....Advertisement.....
.....Advertisement.....

Columns

  • Harold Morgan: If it sounds too good...

    There are promoters — people pushing substantive projects with capital in the bank. Then there are promoters.
    I grew up around the latter kind with the smoke, the mirrors, the hustle and the hot checks. I remember one attempt to build a stock issue around a $350 copper lease.
    In economic development, hopes and dreams play big roles.
    So headlines about the latest “next big things” should bring caution.
    As context for big announcements, complaints float that Gov. Susana Martinez has done little to produce jobs in New Mexico. True enough, I think.
    But the other truth is that governors can do little to “jump start” an economy.

    Click here to read more...
  • Solyndra isn't the whole story

    In the utility room of a wealthy homeowner was a Rube Goldberg-like solar system, impossibly complex. It wasn’t working. In the 1970s, it was my first solar story.
    We’ve come a long way, baby. Now they work, and the biggest obstacle – cost – is going away. Good ol’ American know-how would have risen to the challenge, eventually, but the Chinese beat us to the punch.  

    Click here to read more...
  • Analyze your benefits

    Admit it: You probably spend more time comparison shopping online than reviewing your annual benefits enrollment materials.
    That’s a big mistake because the money you could save by choosing the right employee benefits package probably far exceeds any savings you could get on a big-screen TV.
    For example, many people don’t sign up for an extremely valuable benefit – flexible spending accounts (FSAs).
    If your employer offers them, FSAs let you pay for eligible out-of-pocket health care and/or dependent care expenses on a pre-tax basis – that is, before federal, state and Social Security taxes are deducted from your paycheck.

    Click here to read more...
  • Time to restructure

    As Jerome Block Jr. joins the roster of bad boys and girls forced to leave the state’s Public Regulation Commission, let’s look back and see how we got here.
    In 1996 voters passed a constitutional amendment to combine the State Corporation Commission, whose three members were elected on a statewide basis, and the Public Utility Commission, whose three members were appointed.
    It would be replaced by the Public Regulation Commission, whose five members would be elected by district.
    This super-agency would regulate utilities, phone companies, water and sewer systems, insurance, pipelines, and tow-truck operators.

    Click here to read more...
  • It gets better

    They say death is the great equalizer. We all feel pretty much the same after we die.
    And when a loved one dies, the living all suffer the same pain of loss. And so it was for my friend when Bill died.  
    My friend was inconsolable and there was little anyone could do to ease the torment in his heart. Bill had died of AIDS and Mark was his friend, his life mate, his lover. But not his husband.
    As Tina Turner sang, what’s love got to do with it?
    Mark and Bill had lived together in a loving relationship for more than 20 years (far longer than most heterosexual marriages I know.)  
    The disease that took Bill’s life had been contracted by an infected blood supply, not by infidelity or promiscuity.  

    Click here to read more...
  • Gerrymandering lives on

    Elbridge Gerry had quite a life. Born on July 17, 1744, in Marblehead, Mass., he died 70 years later in Washington, D.C.
    In the intervening years, Gerry graduated from Harvard University, where he immersed himself in classical studies.
    A decade later, he was serving in the Colonial House of Delegates before going on to become a member of the Continental Congress.
    It would be a dazzling political career that put Elbridge Gerry among that select group of American patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence and later among those who served in the new nation’s First and Second Congresses.
    His final triumph came in 1812, when he was elected vice president of the United States under President James Madison.

    Click here to read more...
  • Stepping back from dam power

    Just over a century ago, when William Howard Taft was president and I was a young woman, an entrepreneur named Thomas Aldwell started building a dam in the Northwest woods of the Olympic peninsula in Washington.
    The 108-foot-high Elwha dam became an early hydroelectric powerhouse, helping to fuel population and industrial growth related to activities as varied as forestry and ship-building.  
    Over the following decades more hydro-dams in the West were built.
    Mega-dams like Grand Coulee and Boulder rose across rivers, and the cost for electricity to users dropped sharply.

    Click here to read more...
  • Government only helps

    Here’s the recipe for growing an economy:
    “The growth rate of real per capita output is the sum of the growth rate of real per capita labor input and productivity growth.
    Productivity … is determined by the technology and regulatory structure of the economy and therefore is largely independent of spending policies.”
    The good words come from two economists, Harold L. Cole of the University of Pennsylvania and Lee E. Ohanian of UCLA. Their essay appeared Sept. 26 in the Wall Street Journal.
    Growing real per capita labor input means more people working more. Doing more stuff and doing existing tasks more efficiently grows productivity.
    Companies are doing something about growing real per capita output.

    Click here to read more...
  • Fracking cracks open the crannies

    “Fracking” is shoptalk for hydraulic fracturing. The technology uses mixtures of fluids and sand under pressure to crack rocks underground and prop open the cracks.
    In the right rocks, the technique frees natural gas trapped in mini-pockets and adds greatly to the nation’s supply of the popular fuel.
    It works too for extracting oil. The industry proudly promotes fracking. A persistent TV ad shows a lady riding a see-through elevator deep into the Earth to highlight the value of fracking while suggesting no risks.
    But everything has risks. The chance of error and unknowns lurks on every side.
    The policy questions are what are the risks, who bears the risks and how can the total risk be cut.

    Click here to read more...
  • Call for broadband access

    This week, two New Mexico health care professionals, two online learning educators and a small business owner, will travel to Washington, D.C. to ask congressional leaders to support efforts to expand broadband access to rural and underserved areas.
    Debra Newman, a physician’s assistant at a rural health center in Espanola, will lead the delegation.
    Joining her on the trip are William Dubois, a diabetes educator and resident of Pecos Valley; Alice Hopkins-Loy, Field Manager of Fast Forward New Mexico and resident of Santa Fe and Eva Artschwager, University of New Mexico distance-learning professor and resident of San Miguel County.

    Click here to read more...