The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. ENERGY
BP management was warned of infrastructure decay several years before the company’s shut down of a pipeline this week due to corrosion.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: President and Founder Fred L. Smith, Jr. on how rhetoric matters for business.
“No capital faculty lasts forever. Pipelines corrode, cracking towers age, valves begin to leak—and all that creates risk for both the workers and the environment. But why throw always scarce resources at yesterday’s technologies? The trials and hearings that BP will now experience will provide some answers to these questions, but everyone concerned about today’s realities will naturally worry that a company that accepts the PC-wisdom of today—that the oil and gas industry is a dying industry, an industry that cannot operate “sustainably”—should take note. Rhetoric is not irrelevant!
2. CYBERSECURITY
AOL apologizes for the release of customer data.
CEI Experts Available to Comment: Technology Director Clyde Wayne Crews and Policy Analyst Brooke Oberwetter on how private solutions can provide the best cybersecurity.
“Addressing cybersecurity is not a question of how best to regulate businesses that are victims of cyber-attacks, but a question of how best to put market mechanisms into Internet and information technology operations to create incentives for improved security.”
3. HEALTH & SAFETY
In Indonesia, the avian flu death toll rises.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Fellow in Economics John Berlau on recent changes to SEC accounting policies could help save lives.
“The SEC announced a change to its “bill-and-hold” accounting policy to allow vaccine manufacturers to show shareholders the payments they receive for contributing to the government’s vaccine stockpile. The new accounting guidance for vaccines sensibly states that the SEC “will not object” if companies choose to recognize revenues when the payments are received.”
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI Open Market.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
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