Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Permission To Survive

14 Comments

Some thoughts on the health-care debacle, in Massachusetts and the nation:

Insurance companies in Massachusetts are thus required to offer numerous benefits as determined by politicians and lobbyists, but they may only charge what government bureaucrats permit. It would be akin to the government requiring restaurants to sell $50 steak dinners, but only allowing them to charge $25.

When similar price controls and “guaranteed coverage” laws were imposed in South Dakota and Kentucky, many insurers left these states rather than be slowly bled to death. As similar laws are phased in nationally under ObamaCare, the government could drive private insurers out of business altogether, enabling it to herd unwilling Americans into a “public option.”

ObamaCare thus places a noose around insurers’ necks. Insurance companies will be allowed to survive only at the arbitrary pleasure of the government.

…The trend is becoming clear. First, insurers must seek government permission to survive. Then, patients must seek permission to receive some forms of medical care. Will we soon need government permission simply to live?

That’s what seems to generally happen at the end of the road we’re on. A quarter of a billion people were, after all, murdered by their governments in the last century.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Heating The Planet

8 Comments

…with biodiesel.

Maybe politicos should do more research before imposing half-baked energy mandates?

It wouldn’t do any good. They’re mostly too stupid to understand the results of the research, or too much on the take from the benefitting industry to care. But they get to pretend to be saving the planet.

Speaking of biodiesel, will the same be true of biokerosene? Is the “green aviation” initiative another unintended consequence on the way?

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Remains Of A California Day

11 Comments

Some depressing thoughts from long-time Democrat (who will be voting for Mickey Kaus in June) Victor Davis Hanson:

…how would we return to sanity in California, a state as naturally beautiful and endowed and developed by our ancestors as it has been sucked dry by our parasitic generation? The medicine would be harder than the malady, and I just cannot see it happening, as much as I love the state, admire many of its citizens, and see glimmers of hope in the most unlikely places every day.

After all, in no particular order, we would have to close the borders; adopt English immersion in our schools; give up on the salad bowl and return to the melting pot; assimilate, intermarry, and integrate legal immigrants; curb entitlements and use the money to fix infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, trains, etc.; build 4-5 new damns to store water in wet years; update the canal system; return to old policies barring public employee unions; redo pension contracts; cut about 50,000 from the public employee roles; lower income taxes from 10% to 5% to attract businesses back; cut sales taxes to 7%; curb regulations to allow firms to stay; override court orders now curbing cost-saving options in our prisons by systematic legislation; start creating material wealth from our forests; tap more oil, timber, natural gas, and minerals that we have in abundance; deliver water to the farmland we have; build 3-4 nuclear power plants on the coast; adopt a traditional curriculum in our schools; insist on merit pay for teachers; abolish tenure; encourage not oppose more charter schools, vouchers, and home schooling; give tax breaks to private trade and business schools; reinstitute admission requirements and selectivity at the state university system; take unregistered cars off the road; make UC professors teach a class or two more each year; abolish all racial quotas and preferences in reality rather than in name; build a new all weather east-west state freeway over the Sierra; and on and on.

In other words, we would have to seance someone born around 1900 and just ask them to float back for a day, walk around, and give us some advice.

It’s hard to see much hope, given how the looters in Sacramento have arranged things with their gerrymandered districts.

On that last recommendation, does he mean upgrading I-80, or a new freeway with a different (presumably more southerly) route? Perhaps just south of Yosemite, providing a quick route to the Mammoth ski area for the Bay Area? But where would it hook into another interstate? The only two options are I-80, way to the north, or I-15, far south. Ideally, I guess it would continue east all the way across Nevada to extend I-70 in Utah all the way to California. In any event, it’s a pipe dream given the current state of state finances.

[Update a while later]

I haven’t been up that way in a few years. Is 395 four lanes all the way to Mammoth through the Owens Valley now? That would be a natural place to hook in a new road.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Say It’s Not So

4 Comments

You will be as shocked as I am to learn that ObamaCare is going to cost more than advertised.

Well, as Queen Nancy said, we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it. It’s a shame that there couldn’t have been a cheaper way. I wonder if my ObamaCare defenders in comments really believed those CBO numbers, or they were just lying leftists? Speaking of which, Matt Welch notes that, as with health care, the president is lying about financial regulation as well. All while being on the take from the industry.

As the old saying goes, the problem with socialism is socialism. The problem with capitalism is capitalists.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Speaking of which, thoughts on cronyism and the left.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some House Democrats who were stupid enough to believe the CBO estimates (if they really were) are hearing a snapping sound.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

OK, We’ve Established What You Are

27 Comments

Now we’re just haggling over the price — what kind of socialist is Barack Obama?

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s a long piece, but I thought this a useful excerpt:

The non-hot socialism Hayek was describing often goes by the name of “social democracy,” though it is perhaps best understood as an American variant of Fabianism, the late-Victorian British socialist tendency. “There will never come a moment when we can say ‘now Socialism is established,’” explained Sidney Webb, Britain’s leading Fabian, in 1887. The flaw of Fabianism, and the reason it never became a mass movement on the Left, is that the revolutionary appetite will never be sated by its incrementalist approach. The political virtue of Fabianism is that since “socialism” is always around the corner and has never been fully implemented, it can never be held to blame for the failings of the statist policies that have already been enacted. The cure is always more incremental socialism. And the disease is, always and forever, laissez-faire capitalism. That is why George W. Bush’s tenure is routinely described by Democrats as a period of unfettered capitalism and “market fundamentalism,” even as the size and scope of government massively expanded under Bush’s watch while corporate tax rates remained high and Wall Street was more, not less, regulated.

This is the scam that they’ve been running for decades. Let’s hope that it’s finally coming to an end. The current polls, at least, would indicate that it is.

I would add that in today’s environment, it is not capitalism that is “unfettered” (and it’s been many decades since that was the case, if ever) but, given the rampant disregard for the Consitution, it is government that has no fetters. That’s what the Tea Parties are all about.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Going Galt

11 Comments

He’s probably not the first, and he won’t be the last:

In a subsequent interview with Bloomberg News, Wynn said much of his desire to leave Las Vegas was because of the country’s economic direction set by Obama.

“The governmental policies in the United States of America are a damper, a wet blanket,” Wynn said. “They retard investment; they retard job formation; they retard the creation of a better life for the citizens in spite of the rhetoric of the president.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, speaking at a press conference on banking reform, was asked about Wynn’ comments on Obama’s policies.

“I’m not going to get into a dispute with Mr. Wynn, somebody who has done so much for Las Vegas, but I will say that taxes are at an all-time low. The tax picture he complained about is just not there.”

Even if it were true that taxes are at an “all-time low” (does anyone really believe that?), Wynn’s not as stupid as Harry wants him to be. He, and we, can see the taxes coming down the road as a result of the insane spending.

[Update a few minutes later]

“Millions face tax increases under Dem’s budget plan.”

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Simplifying The Job

28 Comments

I’m working on a piece along these lines for PM or PJM, but Jim Oberg beat me to the punch:

The plan to reshape the Orion spaceship as a standby rescue vehicle for station crews has profound implications for the requirements of the commercial taxi and its cost. This strategy means the taxis won’t have to last for six months “parked” in space, like Russia’s Soyuz spaceships. The simplification of the taxi’s mission will allow its hardware to be significantly less expensive to build and to validate.

The crucial systems for the taxis have mostly already been built and are available as off-the-shelf technology — which means the spaceships could be much cheaper, much smaller and much more reliable.

The FUD being spread by defenders of the status quo has been almost palpable, and it’s all unjustified.

[Update a few minutes later]

I should add that I doubt very much if the commercial contractors are going to use the Orion abort system. It’s overkill, in both weight and cost. In fact, for a much lighter vehicle, as a taxi would be, it would probably kill the occupants from the acceleration.