Interesting data from your federal government: The average wage of the 15.2 million employees in California, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is $48,090. That’s about $23.12 an hour. Very low on the scale: Private security guards, at $25,950. Also bailiffs, who… Read More

Wednesday I told you what an EPA rule change regarding cellulosic ethanol could mean for the Obama White House and, more important, what it could mean for the shareholders of an ethanol-industry leader. That EPA ruling is a done deal. Another proposed EPA rule… Read More

Less than a month ago I told you about what amounted to a rule change at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Obama administration adjusted an output timetable for the production of cellulosic ethanol, an advanced biofuel. Now, if you didn’t hear this gripping news from me,… Read More

“There has never been,” President Obama proclaimed this week, “a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently as the recovery act.” This is Mr. Obama’s assessment of his $787 billion stimulus package, which marked its first anniversary… Read More

Let’s get down to it. Here’s what Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) sold in the most recent quarter, according to Tuesday’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission:  1 million shares of Carmax (NYSE: KMX) 19.7 million shares of… Read More

Picture this: A congressional staffer laden with a massive, multivolume set of books containing the president’s 2011 budget. We all saw this a couple weeks ago, when Mr. Obama released his blueprint for the government’s next fiscal year.   It’s a ridiculous… Read More

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently cut the nation’s biofuel output quota for 2010. It wasn’t a token cut, either. It was a -94% reduction in cellulosic ethanol, to 6.5 million gallons, from 100 million gallons. (Cellulosic ethanol… Read More

Uganda, the East African nation sandwiched between the Congo and Kenya, is blessed with significant mineral resources. Its rich, fertile land is not prone to drought, and although agriculture has long encompassed a majority of the country’s economy — coffee is its most significant… Read More

This week brought a significant bit of news in the ethanol world. Industry-watchers might assume I’m talking about President Obama’s Wednesday announcement with the Energy and Agriculture secretaries that a federal biofuel output quota schedule had been finalized, a move that… Read More

The President’s health care initiative rests on a shelf with little talk in Congress about what’s next for the sweeping overhaul. At the same time, Mr. Obama has re-positioned the chessboard for his climate-control bill, suggesting at a town-hall meeting in Nashua on Tuesday that the legislation might need to… Read More