From Tom Jones, over at Popular Mechanics.
Category Archives: Business
Who Owns The Asteroids?
A discussion of the implications of the Outer Space Treaty for mining, with Frans von der Dunk.
The Wrong Campaign Gaffe Comparison
I have some thoughts on just how “fine” the private sector is doing under Barack Obama, over at PJMedia.
Youtubing Space Safety
I’ve uploaded the video from the Kickstarter project to Youtube in the hope of giving it more exposure, with only a little over four days to go. Unfortunately. I can’t come up with any way to steer people to the project from there. I don’t seem to be able to edit the description of the video, and comments don’t allow links.
Past The $4500 Mark This Weekend
Less than $2500 to go for the space-safety Kickstarter project, but it has to happen by Friday afternoon.
Detroit
The moral of the story:
Even the best tax regimes are cannibalistic: Every tax is an incentive for the taxpayer to relocate to a more friendly jurisdiction. But tax rates are not the only incentive: Google is not going to set up shop in Somalia. Healthy governments create conditions that make it worth paying the taxes — which is to say, governments are a lot like participants in any other competitive market (with some obvious and important exceptions). The benefits of being in Detroit used to be worth the costs, but in recent decades millions of people and thousands of enterprises large and small have decided that is no longer the case. It is not as though one cannot profitably manufacture automobiles in the United States — Toyota does — you just can’t do it very well in Detroit. No one with eyes in his head could honestly think that the services provided by the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan are worth the costs.
The third lesson is moral. Detroit’s institutions have long been marked by corruption, venality, and self-serving. Healthy societies have high levels of trust. Who trusts Detroit? This is not angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. People do not invest in firms, industries, cities, or countries they do not trust. Corruption makes people poor.
And here are some recent graphic images of the results, from (Michigan ex-pat) Amy Alkon. As went Detroit, so will go the country, if the Democrats get their way on a national level, as they did in Detroit.
[Late-morning update]
“Detroit is liberalism’s Nagasaki.” Except there’s nothing “liberal” about it.
We Are Devo
Patricia’s nephew Matt, has picked up an interesting addition to his Kickstarter film project:
We have great news about the music in Charlie and Wendy. After talking with some of the band members for the last few weeks, DEVO has become involved with the film. A song by DEVO will be played during the opening and closing credits. The song works perfectly for the film. We are big fans of DEVO and many movies their music has been used in (especially by Wes Anderson). We are lucky to have them on board and are excited about using the song in the movie.
They still have a ways to go, but are off to a good start.
The Warm Mongers
…continue to shred their credibility:
By saying that its investigation, carried out by unknown parties, confirmed Dr. Gleick’s account, the institute was implicitly backing the scientist’s claim that he was not responsible for cobbling together a document labeled a fake by Heartland, which he disseminated along with other genuine ones.
The bogus document spoke of effective ways for “dissuading science teachers from teaching science” and of “cultivating” respected writers on climate issues. Dr. Gleick said he had received it “in the mail.”
The Heartland Institute, which has a Web site related to the document release that Web site it calls “Fakegate,” responded scornfully to Dr. Gleick’s reinstatement. “As near as we can tell, this was not an investigation. It was a whitewash,” the institute’s president, Joseph Bast, said in a statement.
Reactions to the Gleick affair have varied widely. Some environmentalists have praised his actions, saying that the risks posed by climate change are so great that using misrepresentation to uncover details about a group like Heartland is justified. But many others in the environmental camp, including his own board, said that such conduct was unworthy of a scientist, particularly one of Dr. Gleick’s stature.
Not enough of them. Remember this the next time the Pacific Institute says anything about…anything.
Marx’s Ghost
The specter that will not die. This is the most important election in my lifetime.
XCOR’s New York Event
Denise Chow has the story.
I think that there’s an excellent chance that they’re going to beat Virgin at being first to market.