Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Judith Curry
At the recent United Nations Climate Summit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “Without significant cuts in emissions by all countries, and in key sectors, the window of opportunity to stay within less than 2 degrees [of warming] will soon close forever.” Actually, this window of opportunity may remain open for quite some time. A growing body of evidence suggests that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon-dioxide emissions than policy makers generally assume—and that the need for reductions in such emissions is less urgent.
Home-Team Advantage
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
In a violent, disordered world, the disagreements among the U.S., Canada and Mexico are minor. The benefits of uniting the economies of these three huge, peaceful nations are real. But it will require a U.S. presidential candidate with some of Prime Minister Harper’s vision to make it happen.
Oil and gas ‘soul searching’ over Landrieu
POLITICO
Darren Goode and Alex Guillén
Endangered Senate Energy chairwoman Mary Landrieu has a new problem to worry about — the risk that her longtime supporters in the oil and gas industry would abandon her in a December runoff against Republican challenger Bill Cassidy.
Fracking Firms Get Tested by Oil’s Price Drop
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Russell Gold and Erin Ailworth
Global oil prices have fallen about 8% in the past four weeks. The European oil benchmark closed Thursday at $90.05 a barrel, its lowest point in 29 months. The price of a barrel in the U.S. closed at $85.77, its lowest since December 2012. Weakening oil prices could put a crimp in the U.S. energy boom. At $90 a barrel and below, many hydraulic-fracturing projects start to become uneconomic, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. While fracking costs run the gamut, producers often break even around $80 to $85.
Technology
High-tech pay gap: Minorities earn less in skilled jobs
USA TODAY
Jessica Guynn
Hispanics, Asians and blacks are not getting equal pay for equal work in the high-tech industry. That’s the finding of new research that shows Hispanics earn $16,353 a year less on average than their colleagues who are not Hispanic. In the same high-skilled positions such as computer programmers and software developers, Asians make $8,146 less than whites and blacks $3,656 less than whites, according to the report from the American Institute for Economic Research.
Microsoft’s Nadella Sets Off a Furor on Women’s Pay
NEW YORK TIMES
Nick Wingfield
Mr. Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, suggested on Thursday that women who do not ask for more money from their employers would be rewarded in the long run when their good work was recognized. The comments, made at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix, drew swift and negative responses on Twitter. Mr. Nadella’s comments come at a time when the tech industry, long viewed as unfriendly to potential employees who are women or minorities, has started to work toward diversifying its work force.
Cyberattacks trigger talk of ‘hacking back’
WASHINGTON POST
Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
But behind the scenes, talk among company officials increasingly turns to an idea once considered so reckless that few would admit to even considering it: Going on the offensive. Or, in the parlance of cybersecurity consultants, “hacking back.” The mere mention of it within cybersecurity circles can prompt a lecture about the many risks, starting with the fact that most forms of hacking back are illegal and ending with warnings that retaliating could spark full-scale cyberwar, with collateral damage across the Internet.
Obama on net neutrality: Don’t ‘clog up the pipes’
POLITICO
Edward-Isaac Dovere
“It’s what has unleashed the power of the Internet, and we don’t want to lose that or clog up the pipes,” Obama said. The president also said his administration is committed to patent reform for the same reasons of encouraging growth. He noted concerns about “folks filing phony patents, and costing some of our best innovators tons of money in court, or even if they don’t go to court, having to pay them off just because they’re making a bogus claim.”
Net neutrality fight hinges on FCC flexibility
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Alex Byers and Brooks Boliek
Republicans and large ISPs say the FCC has a tough legal road ahead if it chooses to reclassify broadband providers: For one, they say it would take far too long — and be too unstable — for the agency to bring in a new legal framework and then decide what to strip away. And they also say that such a move would force the agency to do some legal gymnastics.
Study: Internet access taxes would cost $15B
THE HILL
Tim Devaney
The Internet Tax Freedom Act, passed during the Web boom of the 1990s, prevents state and local governments from taxing people for access to the Internet. But the tax moratorium is about to expire, which would open the floodgates to tax collectors, according to the American Action Forum (AAF). The AAF study found that if states tax Internet access the same way they already tax cellphones, consumers would pay $10 billion a year, while businesses would pay $4.7 billion.
Finance
Wall Street’s wild days return
POLITICO
Ben White
Volatility is back on Wall Street, in a major way. And with concerns growing over an end to the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies, significant slowdowns in global economic growth and daily headlines about deadly diseases and murderous terrorists, the wild ride is likely to be around for a while, with significant economic and political ramifications, analysts say.
A Global Economic Malaise
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
Earlier this year, the International Labor Organization estimated that there were 202 million unemployed people in the world in 2013, up five million from 2012. The I.L.O. forecasts that the number will grow to more than 215 million by 2018 if political leaders and central bankers keep failing to revive their economies.
The Wild Bunch
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Markets have been on a wild ride this week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging more than 300 points Thursday, after rising 275 points on Wednesday after falling 273 points on Tuesday. The return of volatility after months of relative calm doesn’t portend a U.S. recession, but investors can be forgiven if they’re confused about the direction of world economic policy.
Tax-Inversion Players Swoop In for Seconds
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dana Mattioli
The federal government may be trying to prevent U.S. corporations from buying companies in order to relocate abroad for tax purposes. But it hasn’t stopped companies that have already completed such deals from doing their own follow-on acquisitions of U.S. companies.
A.I.G. Had No Better Offer, Bernanke Testifies in Trial
NEW YORK TIMES
Aaron M. Kessler
But Mr. Bernanke did not agree with the notion — a central part of the lawsuit — that A.I.G. got a raw deal from the Federal Reserve, or that it could have gotten a better deal elsewhere. “It was evident from the fact that the board took the Fed’s offer that they didn’t have a better offer,” he said, referring to the vote by A.I.G.’s board approving the government’s loan, and its terms.
Secret Deficit Lovers
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Krugman
But isn’t the falling deficit just a short-term blip, with the long-run outlook as dire as ever? Actually, no. Falling deficits right now have a lot to do with a strengthening economy plus some of that “mindless austerity” the president condemned. But there has also been a dramatic slowdown in the growth of health spending — and if that continues, the long-run fiscal outlook is much better than anyone thought possible not long ago. Yes, current projections still show a rising ratio of debt to G.D.P. starting some years from now, and uncomfortable levels of debt a generation from now. But given all the clear and present dangers we face, it’s hard to see why dealing with that distant and uncertain prospect should be any kind of policy priority. So let’s say goodbye to fiscal hysteria.
Deficit anxiety is not the answer. Here’s what America needs to do
WASHINGTON POST
John Podesta
The real choice for Washington is a simple one. We can continue allowing our policy debates to be waylaid by single-minded, blinkered discussion of the long-term deficit. Or we can make the right choice and focus on solving the challenges we face today, on building an economy that works for the middle class, on investing in young people and innovative technologies, on accelerating growth — and, in the end, reduce our long-term deficits and debt and avoid the crisis of 2039.
Politics
Late-season surprises shake GOP confidence in Senate elections
WASHINGTON POST
Karen Tumulty and Robert Costa
For months, the 2014 midterm elections have looked like a deck stacked in favor of Republicans. But as campaign season heads into its final weeks, some wild cards are on the table in states where the GOP had been expecting easy victories on its way to gaining six seats and taking control of the Senate.
Cry of G.O.P. in Campaign: All Is Dismal
NEW YORK TIMES
Jeremy Peters
With four weeks to go before the midterm elections, Republicans have made questions of how safe we are — from disease, terrorism or something unspoken and perhaps more ominous — central in their attacks against Democrats. Their message is decidedly grim: President Obama and the Democratic Party run a government that is so fundamentally broken it cannot offer its people the most basic protection from harm.
Money Matters Less
NEW YORK TIMES
David Brooks
The upshot is that we should all relax about campaign spending. We should worry more about America’s rich. Some people who are really smart at making money are apparently really stupid at spending it. This year, the big spender is a hedge fund manager named Tom Steyer. He could have spent $42.7 million paying for kids to go to college. Instead he has spent that much money this year further enriching the people who own TV stations. What a waste.
America Is ‘War on Women’ Weary
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Kimberley Strassel
The GOP’s overall woman deficit is caused primarily by minority women—losing by 85 points among black women and 57 points among Hispanic women. The GOP’s task in changing those numbers likely has far less to do with reproductive rights as it does immigration reform and outreach. Democrats are too invested in this strategy to let up now. But if they lose the Senate in November, it will be in part because voters—men and women alike—expect more from a party than gender pandering.
U.S. Opposing China’s Answer to World Bank
NEW YORK TIMES
Jane Perlez
For almost a year, China has been pitching an idea to its neighbors in Asia: a big, internationally funded bank that would offer quick financing for badly needed transportation, telecommunications and energy projects in underdeveloped countries across the region. With the public backing of President Xi Jinping and a pledge from Beijing to contribute much of the $50 billion in initial capital, the plan could be seen as an answer to critics who have long argued that China should take on greater responsibilities as a world power. But the United States, perhaps the most vocal of such critics, especially on issues such as climate change and arms proliferation, has not embraced the Chinese proposal.
Obama Weighs Options to Close Guantanamo
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Carol E. Lee and Jess Bravin
The White House is drafting options that would allow President Barack Obama to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by overriding a congressional ban on bringing detainees to the U.S., senior administration officials said. Such a move would be the latest and potentially most dramatic use of executive power by the president in his second term. It would likely provoke a sharp reaction from lawmakers, who have repeatedly barred the transfer of detainees to the U.S.
A maze to opt out of Obamacare individual mandate
POLITICO
Rachel Bade
Tens of millions of Americans can avoid the fee if they qualify for exemptions like hardship or living in poverty, but the convoluted process has some experts worried individuals will be tripped up by lost paperwork, the need to verify information with multiple sources and long delays that extend beyond tax season.
Turkish ambassador: It’s not just about Kobani
USA TODAY
Serdar Kiliç
We strongly reject the groundless and unfair accusations against Turkey regarding the recent developments in the Syrian border city of Kobani. I wish things were as simple as they are presented, but unfortunately they are not, and this “name and shame” game should stop.
