Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Luxurious College Apartments

11 Comments

…built on debt:

When people ask why college tuition is so high, defenders of the higher-education system point to things like “Baumol’s cost disease” (costs in industries without much productivity growth tend to rise, because they have to compete for labor with more productive industries) and declining state contributions to public colleges. No doubt these play a part. But this cannot explain the vast upgrades in college residential amenities that have taken place in the 20 years since I graduated from college, when a student union and some ivy on the walls was about the best you could expect.

But of course, our parents were paying for it, and they didn’t care whether we had a swimming pool. A certain Spartan element was supposed to be part of the ritual of college attendance, just as it had been when they were in college. What changed? I suspect the answer is that rising tuition, and the increasing reliance on student loans, has placed more of the financial responsibility into the hands of students. And the students shop for colleges based on … well, about what you’d expect when you give tens of thousands of dollars to 18-year-olds and ask where they’d like to spend the next four years.

This is policy insanity.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Blue Origin

10 Comments

Several journalists seem to have gotten a personal tour from Jeff Bezos yesterday. Here’s Jeff Foust’s story. Things seem (finally) to be ramping up. I’d say they’re now solidly in the lead in the suborbital race, but they’re also going to orbit.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And here’s Ken Chang’s story. I’m sure that Alan Boyle and Eric Berger will have their own takes. Wish I’d known about it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Chang’s take is more detailed. I found this amusing:

Currently, most rocket companies launch, at most, about a dozen times a year. “You never get really great at something you do 10, 12 times a year,” Mr. Bezos said. With a small fleet of reusable New Shepard rockets, Blue Origin could be launching dozens of times a year.

NASA proposes to launch SLS once every couple of years. Insane.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Eric Berger’s take. He has more detail about the BE-4 and its implications for the RD-180 issue.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Space-Policy White Paper

Keith Cowing has some thoughts, with which I largely agree. This was clearly a compromise, in which the SLS/Orion supporters and Commercial Crew supporters agreed to come together to support each others’ programs, and present a united front. Unfortunately for the former, one program makes sense, and the other doesn’t. At some point, it will die, but not before billions more are wasted on it.

Business, Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society, Weird

A New Suborbital Tourism Vehicle

This article is amusing:

CosmoCourse CEO Pavel Pushkin told Sputnik New Agency, he came up with the idea of suborbital tourism back in 2013 when he was working at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.

“We were reviewing various concepts of commercial space rockets and came up with the idea of launching people into space via suborbital trajectory.”

Wow, as far back as 2013! What a visionary.

Note that it’s short on details.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Trumpophrenia

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Is there a cure for it?

I suffer from it and it’s only getting worse. I change my opinion about Donald almost every five minutes – and I can’t be the only one. There may be millions of us. For some it’s even more problematic. These people are not Trumpophrenic. They are Trumpophobic. And, if this Drudge link has any veracity, they have taken their problem to their shrinks.

I haven’t gone that far – yet. But I am searching for a cure for Trumpophrenia before I have to reach for the Haldol. If he becomes president, I don’t want any of us to become real life schizophrenics ourselves, unable to predict what our leader will say or do next.

But basically I think he’s a good guy and his heart is the right place. His instincts for making America great again are also basically good. So I will make my plea. Donald, you and only you are the cure for Trumpophrenia. Do it. Take us out of our misery. If you want to be president, start acting like one. Now.

He’s not capable of it. My opinion of Trump is actually quite steady. I’ve never had a high opinion of him, and the more I see of him the more loathsome the ignorant con artist grows to me. I keep hoping for that Face In The Crowd moment, but I fear it will never come.

[Afternoon update]

Today’s results may make that moment approach a little sooner. Cruz reportedly mopped up the floor with Trump in Kansas, 50-25, and he’s beating him in Maine as well.