Not content with exposing Florida to financial catastrophe by taking on responsibility for insuring coastal properties, Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R) continues his assault on his state’s fiscal health, this time by imposing nonsensical populist measures on utilities. As Seeking Alpha’s Roger Conrad observes:

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is running for US Senate in 2010–and darned if he’s going to let power utilities’ need for capital during a recession stand in his way.On Thursday, Crist effectively fired two long-standing members of the Sunshine…

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Yesterday in a press release from CEI’s Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets, the Center raised many questions that should be brought to Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s attention. The questions mainly surrounded doubt over whether or not Florida has enough capital to pay out insurance claims in the event of a catastrophic hurricane.

As Christian Cámara, director of CEI’s Florida Insurance Project, said in the release, “There are a lot of very serious unanswered questions.”

There was one question that was unfortunately…

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“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” ~Ayn Rand

Most agree that the US health insurance market is in need of reform. However, there is a wide spectrum of beliefs about what the problems in the market are and the best way to confront them.

Those who believe that…

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It may not be in a debacle like California’s, but I still find it galling to see my home state of Florida go from being one of the best governed states in the country to leading the nation in a particularly destructive sort of fiscal insanity. But if the first step toward a cure is an accurate diagnosis, The Economist is helping on that count. As the current issue notes:

Two years ago, after homeowners complained about rising insurance premiums, the governor,…

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As the ethanol industry sees its prospects flounder, it has sought the help of an actual general to stem the public backlash against its uneconomic, environmentally harmful product. Reports Fortune:

Reporting for duty in ethanol’s counterattack: Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general and former NATO commander, who signed on in February as co-chairman of an upstart ethanol trade group called Growth Energy. Clark, 64, has fully embraced the private sector since ending his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.…

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It seems that the state of Florida has overpromised insurance coverage to its citizens in the case of a catastrophic storm, and now is coming to Congress for a bailout, lest a major storm bankrupt the state. Naturally, we had something to say about this in a press release today. The director of CEI’s Florida office, Christian Cámara:

Reliance on a Federal bailout as official state policy is reckless at best. Instead of lobbying Washington politicians for money, Commissioner [Kevin] McCarty and…

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So they’re down to one — original member, that is. Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell, one of the last two surviving founders of the seven-piece band that arguably defined Southern rock, died in his home in Florida today.

Skynyrd was so big that a plane crash couldn’t kill them all — and the surviving members carried on for years, even as others passed away after the crash. They spawned dozens of mediocre imitators, but Skynyrd themselves remain as fun to listen…

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