Beyond Climate Change: Starbucks Awash in Cash

While it may be tempting to go after companies for hypocrisy on corporate social responsibility, even deeper criticism may be closer to the bottom line, financially. Even though social media castigated Starbucks for its impact on carbon emissions in agreeing to fly its Southern Californian CEO Brian Niccol to Seattle on a company plane each week, I submit that the amount of spending entailed raises questions about cost-containment and even cast some doubt on whether the company’s price increases in 2024 were wholly justified, and thus even on whether the industry was competitive or an oligarchy.

The full essay is at "Beyond Climate Change: Starbucks Awash in Cash."

Resolved: Flanders and Wallonia as E.U. States

On August 22, 2024, Bart De Wever of the New Flemish Alliance group in Belgium resigned as his efforts to form a government had stalled. His group had won the most votes in the E.U. state’s most recent election back in June, at which time King Philippe appointed De Wever to find consensus among five groups on policies such as taxation on capital gains. Belgium’s longest period without an elected government is an incredible 592 days, which was set after the previous record of 541 days that had been set after the 2010 elections.[1] With two culturally-different regions, Belgium has been difficult to govern. Being a state in a union could conceivably help Belgium in this regard.

The full essay is at "Flanders and Wallonia."

1. Angela Skujins, “Belgian Government Talks at a Standstill after Resignation of Key Negotiator,” Euronews, August 23, 2024.

Public Policy on Housing in the E.U.: On the Impact on Federalism

With rents and the price of houses being historically high in 2024 in the E.U., it is no surprise that housing was a salient issue in the E.U. election campaigns that summer. Legislative action on the state level had been insufficient. Hence, President von der Leyen told the parliament, “I want this Commission to support people where it matters most, and if it matters to Europeans, it matters to Europe.”[1] The Union complementing legislative action by state governments on such an important issue is admittedly a step in the direction of solving an urgent problem, but the impact on the federal system in the future should not be ignored. As important as a pressing issue of the day is, someone should be keeping an eye on the shop itself. The gradual political consolidation of the U.S. federal system over more than two centuries at the expense of federalism is an example of what can happen when policy-makers are too oriented in putting out policy “brush fires” without bothering to ask how the federal system itself could be impacted. 

The full essay is at "Public Policy on Housing in the E.U."

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1. Paula Soler, “Von der Leyen Promised an EU Commissioner to Tackle the Housing Crisis,” Euronews, August 13, 2024.

Nuclear Power: Rendering War Too Dangerous in a World of Nations

Increasing integration of the global financial and business sectors and the global need to combat climate change by restricting carbon emissions are just two reasons why the impotence of the UN, which has not touched the doctrine of absolutist national sovereignty, has become increasingly problematic. The risk to nuclear technology in power-generation from war argues strongly for not only the obsolescence of war between countries, but also the benefits of transferring some governmental sovereignty from the nation-states to a global-level government, which the UN has never been. The case of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, in the midst of Russia’s invasion in 2024 is a case in point.

The full essay is at "Nuclear Power: Rendering War Too Dangerous."