Friday, December 22, 2006

The subsidies that the US government extends to the oil industry are in the news today, with the following story from the New York Times:

Study Suggests Incentives on Oil Barely Help U.S.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 — The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money.

The study, which the Interior Department refused to release for more than a year, estimates that current inducements could allow drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico to escape tens of billions of dollars in royalties that they would otherwise pay the government for oil and gas produced in areas thatand spending policies. But eliminating these subsidies would be one of the ones for which I would cheer the loudest.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

The U.S. economy was a bit weaker during the summer than earlier believed as the sharpest housing-sector slump in 15 years took an even bigger toll on the slowest quarterly growth of 2006.

Gross domestic product rose at a 2% annual rate July through September, revised down from a previous estimate a month ago of 2.2% for the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected third-quarter growth to hold at 2.2%. The Commerce Department said the revision to GDP, a measure of all goods and services produced in the economy, mainly reflected a downward adjustment to consumer spending.

Consumer spending, the