Category Archives: Business

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

Going Galt

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America’s already done it:

The implications of this are actually terrifying. What are those nearly 92 million people doing with their time, other than sitting around depressed?. Many, of course, are on some version of welfare. Some are panhandling. We see the homeless on the streets of all our big cities. Others are moving into a shadow economy, much of it illegal (drugs, prostitution), not paying taxes on whatever they earn. It’s truly a sad situation. No wonder so many states are moving toward legalizing grass. Everyone wants to zone out.

This is rapidly approaching a a pre-revolutionary condition, but not for a revolution many of us would want to undergo. To avoid it, a massive change must occur at the federal level. But Barack Obama, mired in a dead ideology, doesn’t seem prepared to do anything but prolong the situation with highly conventional liberal solutions that have failed for decades, maybe even centuries.

And yet there is so much he could do. The most obvious, many of us know, is to unshackle the energy industry. He should dismantle much of the bureaucracy as well. There’s a lot more, of course. But the point now is to realize that when you have nearly 92 million people deserting the labor force in a country of 317 million (many of who are children too young to work), you have a catastrophic problem on your hands.

Even if he’s capable of realizing that, he’s ideologically incapable of changing.

[Update a few minutes later]

Non-Recovery

This is a recovery only in the narrow, technical sense of growth in GDP. But it’s not growing anywhere near fast enough to provide jobs for those who want and need them. It’s the worst economy since the Great Depression, brought on by similar foolish policies.

[Late-morning update]

December probably wasn’t a one-off:

The smiley-face crowd’s next line of defense is that December was a one-off — some are even blaming inclement weather, which is pretty pathetic, given that those who predicted seasonally adjusted job additions of almost 200,000 already knew what the month’s weather was like — and that the generally upward trajectory seen during most of 2013 will resume. There are many reasons to question that optimism.

I think a lot of wishful thinkers are underestimating the destructive effects of uncertainty in health insurance on hiring.

Business, Space

Off To Mojave

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Hoping to get up there and see SS2 in flight.

[Update mid-afternoon]

OK, I’m back. Got to the flight line a few minutes before the drop. I took some pictures, but I’m sure that Virgin’s are better. I’ll look at them and see if I have anything worth posting, but I didn’t have a lot of zoom on the camera.

On a related note, I stopped over at XCOR and fulfilled some of the last of my Kickstarter obligations, where it was gently pointed out to me that I’d deployed some sloppy wording in the section on Lynx, unintentionally implying that it doesn’t have engine-out capability at takeoff. I meant to say loss of thrust, not premature engine termination.

It’s quite annoying to me, given how much effort and time I spent to get it right. Most people won’t notice it, but to me it’s like a mountain, a VAST BOWL OF PUS. Now people will be saying, “Gee, what else did he screw up?”

So if you don’t hear from me after this, it will be because I went down the local SCA chapter to borrow a sword with which to ritually liberate my viscera.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here are a couple of nice shots, courtesy of Doug Messier.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“Income Inequality”

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…and the Left:

Just like the apparatchiks of the socialist regimes, the wealthy — including those who most yell about the injustices of income inequality — take very expensive vacations. They don’t opt for a day trip close to home or stay at a Holiday Inn a few days near a crowded public beach. Nor do they decide to give what they planned to spend on a luxury trip to the poor, so they could all have a vacation instead of staying at home the week or two they are off from work.

We know that these folks are hypocritical, and hope that no one will call them on their personal behavior. When they say that all their goals could be covered by higher taxes on the rich, they probably also realize that even if they raised the tax rate phenomenally for the truly wealthy, the amount they would raise would not cover any of the expenses for all the programs they support. Eventually, the category of “rich” will be lowered to those who earn, let’s say, $150,000 yearly in a big city, in which living expenses are so high and mortgages and rents also outrageously so. Such an income for a family of four puts one squarely in the mid ranges of the middle class.

They still believe that if inequality exists, redistributing the wealth is the only way to address the question. It reminds me of a cartoon I saw decades ago in The New Yorker, in which a king announces to the crowd that he wants an educated populace, so he’s awarding every subject a Ph.D. What the socialists who seek to make policy want is the equivalent: create equality by essentially making everyone more poor, so no one will have enough to go around.

Like equating “health care” with health insurance, leftists like to equate fighting poverty with erasing income inequality, because no one would argue that we shouldn’t fight poverty, while worrying about income inequality allows them to indulge in one of their favorite sins: envy.

But the two things are not the same. One can eliminate poverty (which in many ways we in fact have in America, as measured by the traditional definition (no or poor shelter, limited access to food and clothing and basic necessities) and still have income inequality. In fact, in America the “poor” have cell phones and fancy sneakers, and as others have noted, we are the first society in human history to have poor people who are obese. So curing poverty does not, in itself, end income inequality.

Similarly, one can eliminate income inequality by the very simple measure of impoverishing all. Which is what socialism and income redistribution tends to do, historically, for very good reasons. Well, except for the apparatchiks, who will always have theirs.

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

The American Energy Boom

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…booms on:

As Daniel Yergin puts it, “the shale-energy revolution [provides] a new source of resilience for the US and enhances America’s position in the world.”

It’s the one bright spot in the American economy, and it’s happening despite, not because of, “progressive” policies. Of course, they’ll take credit for it, though.

And the Left just hates it. I’d like to see to what degree the anti-frackers and anti-Keystone people are being funded by the Saudis.

Business, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Hollywood’s Fault

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No, this isn’t about the culture wars. It really is a Hollywood Fault, that may prevent Garcetti’s gang of cronies from blotting out the sun of Hollywood and West Hollywood residents.

It’s interesting to note that the Red Line subway runs along it, down Hollywood Boulevard. That line was built a couple decades ago, and it’s not clear that they knew they were building it along a rupture fault. From the map, though, it appears to run a block or two south of it, so even if it did go, it wouldn’t necessarily break the tunnel. But it could leave a crack so deep that you could see all the way down to where the people who run Hollywood live.