The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. TECHNOLOGY
Universal sues popular video-sharing websites, after signing a revenue sharing deal with YouTube.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Analyst Peter Suderman on the prospects for further YouTube success:
“I still wonder if this massive investment will pay off in the long run. The pace of technological development is so fast right now that a service like YouTube, which provides minimal video quality in a smallish window and essentially serves as an ongoing, web version of America’s Funniest Home Videos, isn’t going to be the king of web video for long. Services that provide HD over broadband, offer fully downloadable material that can be stored on a hard drive—these are services that have yet to take off, but with upgrades in of broadband bandwidth, more people are going to become interested in them.”
2. SAFETY
Two new studies find that the benefits of eating fish outweigh potential health risks.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Study author Sandy Szwarc on the unfounded worries surrounding women’s health and mercury in fish:
“With increasing urgency over the past few years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and environmental groups have issued alarming consumer warnings about the dangers of eating fish. Allegedly, fish consumption has become dangerous due to the presence of methylmercury, an organic compound produced when certain bacteria in soil or water ingest inorganic mercury. … However, there is no evidence that the levels of methylmercury in the fish that Americans consume are cause for any health concern. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that all American women of childbearing age are many times below exposure levels even theorized as posing a risk of detrimental effects for either themselves or their babies.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
A federal judge vacates the conspiracy and fraud convictions of former Enron chief Kenneth Lay.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on why Enron was one of the environmental movement’s favorite energy companies:
“The solution [to global warming] recommended by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies–a greenhouse gas emissions trading program, in which firms would trade allowances to produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases–represents a tremendous moral hazard for companies. It was enthusiastic trading in financial instruments like this that proved too much of an incentive for Enron to cook its books. In fact, Enron was the leading lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for such a “market mechanism” for implementing the Kyoto protocol, which it thought would “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”
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