Category Archives: Business

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Press Conference Coverage

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Here’s a pretty good story from Clara Moskowitz, based on the actual event, as opposed to just the press release.

I should provide some context for Jeff Foust’s quote of me:

While this group may suppot the administration’s commercial space policies, just don’t expect them to start sporting “Obama 2012″ buttons any time soon. “I just don’t think that the president cares that much one way or the other about commercial space,” Simberg said in response to a question. “But I’m glad for that. I think if he did we’d have worse problems.”

The question this was a response to was one from Keith Cowing. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but a rough but I think accurate paraphrase would be, “You have called the president a liar on your blog. So how can you support his space policy?”

I don’t know if the people on the phones could hear my eyes rolling, but those present will attest that they were, which is why I didn’t bother to actually answer it.

By the way, I think that he does his readers a disservice by so steadfastly refusing to link to anything that I write, anywhere, but as he always tells anyone who complains, it’s his web site.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

The Future Of ObamaBusiness

27 Comments

They still don’t get it:

“I have seen the future of Obamabusiness and its regulations (my primary responsibility as a business is to provide jobs, not make a profit) and have responded by not hiring in the traditional manner at all – ever. I will now use temp agencies. Almost no paperwork, no disputes, no benefit costs, no HR department, no lawsuits, no commitments. Welcome to the future of being an employee.”

Emphasis mine. The notion that the business of a business is to create jobs is a Marxist one. As the president remains, despite his shellacking.

Business, Education, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

A Possible Explanation For Wall Street Screwups

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They rely too much on credentialism in hiring:

It is odd that the soft firms, which market themselves to clients as being super-smart repositories of brainpower (of course this is largely a fiction; see point 3 above), would rely so heavily on university admissions committees. They effectively outsource a big chunk of due diligence on their most important investment (human capital) to a group of people whose judgement they somehow trust, but perhaps without detailed understanding. When I was on the faculty at Yale I knew people in admissions and it’s not clear to me that they were the best able to spot potential in 18 year olds. In studies of expert performance admissions people are less good at predicting UG GPA than a simple algorithm. (The “algorithm” is simply a weighted sum of SAT and HS GPA!)

I’m a lot less impressed by Ivy degrees than I’m supposed to be. And I think that the current occupant of the White House is a great example of why.