Sigh. I wish that I were surprised by this. As a commenter says, we remain doomed to not having a presidential candidate who can explain reality to the American people.
Category Archives: Economics
The Peak Oil Myth
Will the fracking boom finally put a stake through its heart?
Of course not. Malthusians are never stopped by reality. They just pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and go unmerrily on their way.
Merchants Of Despair
Speaking of Bob Zubrin, he has a new book out
Fast-Forward Radio
I’ll be on tomorrow night with Brian Wang, to discuss moon colonies.
It’s The Way Our Fathers Did It
So obviously, it’s the only way that it can be done:
All planning must be timid and scoped to be within the limited capabilities of what was done by past over-priced government projects. If I bought a Ford Pinto, I cannot buy a new car next time. I have to plan on car trips with the assumption that I must always own a lemon.
Quoting Homer Simpson (and apparently Lawrence Krauss)
“You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”
Trying to change this mindset is a never-ending battle.
The “Stimulus”
[Monday morning update]
How Big Government screwed up the Big Spend:
Biden said the stimulus would “literally drop kick us out of the recession.” But Grabell concludes that “the stimulus ultimately failed to do what America expected it to do — bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. The drop kick was shanked.”
And that’s about what you might expect from a White House run by brilliant theoreticians with no one around to do a reality check. Let’s contrast Team Obama with Team Reagan. The Gipper’s cabinet had Donald Regan, former CEO of Merrill Lynch; George Schultz, former president of engineering firm Bechtel; Caspar Weinberger, also of Bechtel; Malcolm Baldridge, CEO of manufacturer Scovill. And, of course, there was Reagan himself, the former two-term governor of America’s most populous state.
It’s depressing.
[Bumped]
The Groundhog State Of The Union Address
Five things we don’t want to hear any more:
What is it about debt that Mr. Obama does not get? Please spare us any new programs or initiatives. We owe now $16 trillion. America is borrowing at the rate of $3 billion-plus a day. So please, Mr. President, no more Solyndras. We did not want or need Cash for Clunkers. There is no money for more expansions of food stamps. Nothing is left for student loan reprieves, high-speed rail, or anything else. To propose any new expenditure would first require some honest disclosure, like the following: “I wish to borrow $10 billion at 3% interest to lower student loan debt and I propose to pay for it by selling off 1000 new oil leases.”
The problem with these Obama initiatives is not just that we do not have the money and must borrow to pay for them, but that we feel most of them only make things worse, whether by subsidizing another mortgage for someone who is by market standards not likely to meet the loan payments and would be better off renting, or by paying some insider crony to make and sell solar panels at a loss. Again, chill on the new programs, and just start paying off what you already borrowed. Outside government, psychiatrists often treat with mind-altering medicines the unstable who compulsively charge things that they cannot pay for and do not need.
That’s just one of them.
More Lunar Base Thoughts
Over at Open Market, where I also discuss the Romney advisers.
[Update late afternoon]
More from Doug Messier.
Newt needs to make an issue of this before Tuesday: “Governor Romney, you said that you’d fire someone who came up with a costly plan for lunar activities, and yet you just hired someone as a space adviser who was already fired for doing just that…”
Also, here’s Marcia Smith’s report on the Romney non-event today.
[Saturday morning update]
On the 26th anniversary of the Challenger loss, Byron York has a report on the two candidates’ space policies.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Mitt Romney would have fired Mike Griffin.” I’m guessing that Jim Muncy had some input into this, and that it may become a Gingrich talking point in the next couple days. I just fed Jake Tapper some questions to ask him tomorrow morning on This Week.
Newt’s Lunar Base
I have a piece up at PJMedia on the technical, economic and political feasibility.
The Economic Chart
…that may doom Obama’s presidency. Happy talk about how many jobs Obama has created isn’t going to cut it in the face of numbers like this. It’s the most anemic recovery in decades, and it’s not going to get any better with the policies in place.