The proposed $420 billion merger between Dominion Energy, mostly of Virginia and NextEra Energy, based primarily in Florida, places a very high value on a sector, utilities, that investors have all but ignored. Yet the two companies are primary energy providers for the AI boom, notably “Data Center Alley” in Loudoun County, Va. If those […]

The Trump administration like its predecessors has tended to favor large corporations in its distribution of government favors. Such an economic system is not capitalism; it is socialism with cronyism attached, less bad than ideologically fanatical socialism, but not by much. Large corporations are not capitalist institutions unless controlled by their founder; the incentives therein […]

C.S. Lewis’s 1938 “Out of the Silent Planet” is a beautiful philosophical science fiction novel in which a traveler voyages from the theologically “silent” planet of Earth to first Mars (Malacandra) and then in a sequel Venus (Perelandra). Our technology has advanced gigantically since 1938, so that colonies on Mars although probably not Venus are […]

The capitalist system works best when willing buyers meet willing sellers and a free-market price is negotiated. In the real world of today, this market mechanism is imperfect. It falls down when governments get involved, with their unlimited funding from taxpayers. It also falls down if huge funds appear with their management’s incentives tied to […]