UP Links 16 October 2012

+ Brandon Fuller

Two Sides of the Port of Piraeus

In a 2010 deal that put 500 million euros ($647 million) into the coffers of Greece’s cash-starved government, Cosco leased half of the port of Piraeus and quickly converted a business that had languished as a Greek state-run enterprise into a hotbed of productivity.The other half of the port is still run by Greece. And the fact that its business lags behind Cosco’s is emblematic of the entrenched labor rules and relatively high wages — for those lucky enough to still have jobs — that have stifled the country’s economic growth.

Ironies In Rent-Seeking

…now that the drug warriors have enabled the virtual legalization of pot by preventing its development as a prescription medicine, the “medical marijuana” profiteers are now trying to block full-on marijuana legalization at the state level because they see it as a threat to their highly profitable racket. Latest development is from Washington State, where the medical-marijuana industry is the primary organized opposition to the legalization initiative I-502.

Enrico Moretti on the Divergence Between Rich and Poor Cities

The growing divergence between cities with a well-educated labor force and innovative employers and the rest of world points to one of the most intriguing paradoxes of our age: our global economy is becoming increasingly local. At the same time that goods and information travel at faster and faster speeds to all corners of the globe, we are witnessing an inverse gravitational pull toward certain key urban centers. We live in a world where economic success depends more than ever on location. Despite all the hype about exploding connectivity and the death of distance, economic research shows our salary, productivity and creativity increasingly depends on the place where we live.

Technologies & Rules: 3-D Printers and Guns (also see Kari Kohn’s post)

But monitoring whether people make their own guns on a 3-D printer is going to be impossible, barring sticking an A.T.F. agent in every home. It’s also hopeless to try to build a technology into these printers that prevents people from printing a gun. One project mentioned in Mr. Wilson’s video, called the RepRap printer, will be capable of replicating itself by printing other 3-D printers.

Brad Plumer’s Update on Carbon Capture and Sequestration

A big new report from the Global CCS Institute takes stock of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the world as of 2012. And progress has been… rather slow. While a handful of carbon-capture projects are coming online, there’s still nowhere near enough to make a major contribution toward tackling climate change. What’s more, no one has yet figured out how to effectively capture and bury emissions from coal-fired power plants — a tantalizing idea that could have a huge impact around the world.
Back to top
see comments ()