Gretchen Morgenson earns her Pulitzer

I am generally not the biggest fan of Gretchen Morgenson, the NY Times finance and economics reporter, nor am I her biggest detractor.  Her piece today on the credit default swaps market and the role played in it by the too big to fail banks was financial journalism at its near best:  clear, concise, well-argued: deposit-taking financial institutions with taxpayer backing shouldn't be trading in underregulated over the counter markets.  Much better than the prolix hand-waving we've been seeing in the last year or so. 

Richard Thaler's piece on auctioning off TV broadcast bandwidth in the same business section was equally compelling.

Michael Pollan on anthropocentricity, permaculture

 Phenomenal talk.  Amazing he can cover this much in less than 20 minutes.  I must buy more of his books.

A good chart

From Energy Information Administration, a Federal Agency funded by the "discretionary budget" which is being frozen so that politicians won't have to address the hard issues of underfunded entitlements based on longevity assumptions which have long since been rendered obsolete.  This one chart speaks volumes about the politics and reality of energy.

Table R2.  Energy Consumption by Source and Total Consumption per Capita, Ranked by State, 2007
Rank	Coal		Natural Gas a		Petroleum b		Retail Electricity Sales		Total Consumption per Capita
	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Million Btu
1	Texas	1,609.1	Texas	3,641.4	Texas	5,886.9	Texas	1,173.1	Alaska	1,062.3
2	Indiana	1,574.5	California	2,440.4	California	3,946.3	California	901.6	Wyoming	948.6
3	Pennsylvania	1,490.7	Louisiana	1,423.1	Florida	1,983.5	Florida	788.5	Louisiana	861.2
4	Ohio	1,461.7	New York	1,218.9	New York	1,633.4	Ohio	552.0	North Dakota	671.1
5	Illinois	1,090.3	Illinois	979.3	Louisiana	1,599.9	Pennsylvania	517.2	Texas	496.3
6	Kentucky	1,020.4	Florida	950.3	Pennsylvania	1,455.6	New York	505.6	Montana	483.1
7	West Virginia	983.0	Michigan	847.8	Illinois	1,418.1	Illinois	498.3	Kentucky	477.5
8	Georgia	934.7	Ohio	836.3	New Jersey	1,373.3	Georgia	469.0	West Virginia	469.9
9	Alabama	888.4	Pennsylvania	781.7	Ohio	1,357.0	North Carolina	450.0	Alabama	460.8
10	North Carolina	827.8	Oklahoma	690.6	Georgia	1,100.2	Virginia	380.7	Indiana	458.4
11	Missouri	802.4	New Jersey	640.7	Virginia	1,016.6	Indiana	373.3	Oklahoma	445.8
12	Michigan	799.9	Indiana	548.1	Michigan	987.3	Michigan	372.9	Mississippi	424.3
13	Florida	720.8	Colorado	515.9	North Carolina	970.8	Tennessee	364.1	Iowa	414.0
14	Tennessee	672.4	Georgia	453.9	Indiana	877.7	Kentucky	315.3	Kansas	409.1
15	Wyoming	494.8	Alabama	431.4	Washington	846.8	Alabama	313.3	Arkansas	406.1
16	Wisconsin	464.9	Massachusetts	417.3	Tennessee	827.1	Washington	292.6	Nebraska	391.6
17	Iowa	464.4	Wisconsin	403.9	Missouri	758.9	Missouri	291.8	South Carolina	384.2
18	Virginia	457.9	Arizona	402.1	Kentucky	747.4	South Carolina	279.6	Tennessee	379.0
19	South Carolina	444.0	Minnesota	396.5	Minnesota	706.2	New Jersey	279.6	South Dakota	367.2
20	Arizona	438.5	Mississippi	374.9	Massachusetts	684.6	Louisiana	271.5	New Mexico	361.8
21	North Dakota	420.1	Alaska	371.8	Alabama	626.4	Arizona	263.4	Minnesota	361.7
22	Kansas	396.3	Virginia	332.7	Wisconsin	619.5	Wisconsin	243.3	Idaho	354.0
23	Utah	391.3	Kansas	291.6	Arizona	595.4	Minnesota	232.8	Ohio	352.8
24	Colorado	388.5	Washington	279.7	Oklahoma	578.0	Maryland	223.1	Delaware	350.4
25	Oklahoma	373.2	Missouri	277.6	South Carolina	576.5	Massachusetts	195.0	Maine	346.3
26	Minnesota	366.0	Nevada	263.6	Maryland	557.3	Oklahoma	188.3	Virginia	339.1
27	Maryland	327.8	Iowa	261.9	Colorado	525.4	Colorado	175.0	Missouri	334.1
28	New Mexico	296.1	Oregon	258.2	Mississippi	470.9	Oregon	166.3	Wisconsin	329.8
29	Arkansas	275.0	North Carolina	245.2	Iowa	441.6	Mississippi	164.3	Georgia	329.0
30	New York	257.5	New Mexico	240.3	Kansas	424.5	Arkansas	160.6	Pennsylvania	322.6
31	Louisiana	249.8	Kentucky	236.0	Connecticut	396.8	Iowa	154.5	Washington	320.5
32	Nebraska	216.8	Utah	232.2	Arkansas	386.9	Kansas	137.0	District of Columbia	318.5
33	Montana	202.5	Tennessee	229.7	Oregon	384.7	Nevada	121.6	New Jersey	317.1
34	Mississippi	184.9	Arkansas	228.0	Alaska	324.1	West Virginia	116.6	Illinois	315.2
35	Massachusetts	120.1	Maryland	208.5	Hawaii	306.3	Connecticut	116.4	Colorado	305.5
36	New Jersey	111.8	Connecticut	184.1	Utah	305.6	Nebraska	96.4	Nevada	304.3
37	Washington	95.7	South Carolina	180.3	Nevada	292.6	Utah	94.8	Utah	301.8
38	Nevada	82.9	Nebraska	146.4	West Virginia	288.7	Idaho	81.1	Michigan	301.2
39	California	66.4	West Virginia	122.6	New Mexico	284.8	New Mexico	76.0	North Carolina	298.6
40	Delaware	63.8	Wyoming	117.6	Maine	235.6	Wyoming	53.0	Oregon	296.7
41	Oregon	45.3	Rhode Island	90.8	Nebraska	235.1	Montana	53.0	Hawaii	269.1
42	New Hampshire	44.9	Idaho	83.9	Montana	210.6	District of Columbia	41.3	Maryland	265.0
43	Connecticut	39.9	Montana	75.0	Wyoming	176.2	North Dakota	40.6	Vermont	261.2
44	South Dakota	33.2	New Hampshire	64.6	New Hampshire	169.6	Delaware	40.5	Florida	252.9
45	Hawaii	19.1	North Dakota	63.0	Idaho	165.8	Maine	40.5	Connecticut	249.5
46	Alaska	13.0	South Dakota	54.1	North Dakota	142.7	New Hampshire	38.3	Arizona	248.3
47	Idaho	10.2	Delaware	49.8	Delaware	135.8	South Dakota	36.2	New Hampshire	239.5
48	Maine	6.6	Maine	47.9	South Dakota	121.3	Hawaii	36.1	Massachusetts	234.2
49	District of Columbia	0.5	District of Columbia	33.9	Rhode Island	91.5	Rhode Island	27.3	California	233.4
50	Rhode Island	(s)	Vermont	8.9	Vermont	87.5	Alaska	21.6	New York	209.2
51	Vermont	(s)	Hawaii	3.0	District of Columbia	22.5	Vermont	20.0	Rhode Island	206.6
	United States	22,739.9	United States	23,677.6	United States	40,358.1	United States	12,844.8	United States	336.8
aIncludes supplemental gaseous fuels. bIncludes fuel ethanol blended into motor gasoline. (s) = Value less than 0.05 trillion Btu. Web Page:  All data available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/_seds.html under “Complete Data Files." Sources:  Data sources, estimation procedures, and assumptions are described in the Technical Notes.