…in an abundant world. Shockingly, they’re caused by bad policies.
Category Archives: Business
The Wall Street Protesters
…have met the enemy, and it is they:
Wall Street was the enabler, but Main Street was the addict. Americans stopped saving as long as home prices rose; when home prices started to fall, they started saving again.
That is why the Wall Street protesters are foolish and petulant. American households levered a $6 trillion net inflow of foreign savings during the decade 1998 through 2007 into a bubble that benefited them far more than it did Wall Street. The impact of the bubble on the household balance sheet exceeds the growth in real-estate assets, moreover, because most small business expansion followed the housing bubble.
For fifteen years we rode a tsunami of foreign capital pouring into American markets. We didn’t save a penny. Why should we? Our home equity was our retirement account. Our smartest kids got MBAs and went to Wall Street derivatives desks. Engineering was for dummies. Home prices rose so fast that local governments swam with tax revenues and hired with abandon. Everybody went to the party. Now everybody has a hangover, especially the bankers. We thought we were geniuses because we won the lottery. Now we actually have to produce and export things, and we have to play catch-up. Our kids are competing with Asian kids who go to cram school and practice the violin in the afternoon. This isn’t going to be easy, and the sooner we decide to roll up our sleeves and get back to work instead of looking for bankers to blame, the better our chances of coming back.
They don’t want jobs. They just want paychecks.
Elizabeth Warren And “Liberalism”
Hitting The Sweet Spot
The true genius of Steve Jobs:
There are, fundamentally, two subspecies of entrepreneur. One starts from the present, and visualizes the next logical step from where things are now. This type figures out how to make something better, cheaper, or more widely available, and manages to clear the financial, regulatory, and market barriers to getting it into the marketplace. The other visualizes a different world, one in which things are different and better from the way they are now, and then figures out what path of evolution brings us to that world, and, as the last step, what is the least ambitious step possible that will move things toward that goal.
Spaceflight needs a Steve Jobs. It’s not clear yet whether Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos fit the mold. But someone or some group of someones has to create the vision of abundant affordable in-space infrastructure that will finally replace the Apollo model.
[Update a few minutes later]
The man who sold the future.
Does Stimulus Spending Work?
No one really knows, but probably not.
That Bienhoff Paper
I’ve got the presentation that Dallas Bienhoff gave in Long Beach last week that implicitly demonstrated the lack of need for a heavy lifter.
Note the element weights on page 6. The heaviest item is the depot at twenty tons, but that could go up in three flights. After that is the lander, at twelve tons. That sets the minimum throw weight for the launcher. It’s about ten percent of the eventual capability of the SLS.
[Update a few minutes later]
What’s funny is that the paper doesn’t just bury the lede — it leaves it out entirely. Note that nowhere in it, including the final chart describing the benefits quantitatively, does the phrase “heavy lift” appear. Because Boeing is not allowed to actually say that heavy-lift isn’t needed, even if that’s what their own analysis shows.
Not Sure How Those Numbers Work
Apparently, the solution to our global wealth woes is to mount an expedition to Mars.
Just how does that happen again?
Step 1: Send folks to Mars
Step 2: …
Step 3: PROFIT!
It’s probably one of those “…and then a miracle occurs” things.
[Update a few minutes later]
Groundhog Day
Guy Benson reports on the president’s latest press conference, so you don’t have to have had to suffer through it:
In summary: Pass this bill. It’s paid for. Republicans have no ideas. Mitch McConnell controls Congress. Independent economists love it. Millionaires and billionaires. Fair share. Not my fault. Japanese Tsunamis. I didn’t know. Bush. Pah-kee-stahn. Pass this bill.
What is it he wants us to do with the bill again?
The Socialist Dream
…never dies. It’s unfortunately a basic feature of human nature that requires logic to overcome, and it’s a battle for every generation.
Space Tourism
Modern rocket engines are much safer than the historical examples he cites (e.g., XCOR has never had a hard start, let alone an explosion), and it makes no sense that a single accident would end the industry, any more than deaths on Everest stop people from climbing.