Category Archives: Business

Private Space Station Progress

Bob Bigelow was at the reception last night. So was Leonard David, who got him to spill the beans on his “sovereign clients.” I think that Mike Gold makes an important point:

While countries in Asia and Europe take commercial advantage of space, “my fear is that this could become yet another extremely lucrative economic opportunity that is engendered here … and then shipped overseas,” Gold cautioned. “The U.S. Congress should spend less time questioning the business case of the commercial market. They need to spend more time trying to figure out how to grow that market and ensure that it happens here in the United States.”

With their blinkered “NASA must develop, own and operate its own vehicle” mentality, they are unwittingly aiding commercial space — in Russia.

The Job-Creator-In-Chief

Why is he playing favorites in Texas?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 214,000 net new jobs were created in the United States from August 2009 to August 2010. Texas created 119,000 jobs during the same period. If every state in the country had performed as well, we’d have created about 1.5 million jobs nationally during the past year, and maybe “stimulus” wouldn’t be such a dirty word.

To quote the president in another context, you’d think they would be thanking him, but I’ll bet those ingrate Texan hicks won’t even vote for him in 2012.

[Tagged as “Satire” because I’ve never created a “Sarcasm” category. Maybe I should.]

An Open Letter From Ken Langone

Stop bashing business, Mr. President:

A little more than 30 years ago, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and I got together and founded The Home Depot. Our dream was to create (memo to DNC activists: that’s build, not take or coerce) a new kind of home-improvement center catering to do-it-yourselfers. The concept was to have a wide assortment, a high level of service, and the lowest pricing possible.

We opened the front door in 1979, also a time of severe economic slowdown. Yet today, Home Depot is staffed by more than 325,000 dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated people offering outstanding service and knowledge to millions of consumers.

If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you have advocated, it’s a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive.

Wreckers.

So Why Aren’t There “Shovel-Ready” Jobs?

To read the comments here, it sounds like we’ve reached second-world levels of bureaucracy. It’s like the whole system is just grinding to a halt. And of course, California has become worse than most places, with little prospect for change, given that the electorate continues to go downhill as the productive leave.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Texas model:

What does Austin know that Washington doesn’t? At its simplest: Don’t overtax and -spend, keep regulations to a minimum, avoid letting unions and trial lawyers run riot, and display an enormous neon sign saying, “Open for Business.”

It’s amazing what can happen when you have political leaders who understand, and don’t hate business.

The Miners Were Saved

by capitalism:

Getting a nation’s economics right is more important than at any time since the end of World War II. Chile, Colombia, Peru and Brazil are pulling away from the rest of their hapless South American neighbors. China, India and others are simply copying or buying the West’s accomplishments.

The U.S. has a government led by a mindset obsessed with 250K-a-year “millionaires” and given to mocking “our blind faith in the market.” In a fast-moving world filled with nations intent on catching up with or passing us, this policy path is a waste of time.

There’s something you’re not going to hear the president say.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related somehow. Obama is worse than Carter:

“For the last couple of years, President Obama keeps claiming that the recession was the worst economy since the Great Depression. But this is not correct. This is the worst ‘recovery’ since the Great Depression.” The extended stagnation, high unemployment, and the troubling potential for a double dip recession is starting to look more like the Depression itself now.

But the indictment of Obamanomics goes beyond the actual performance so far. Even worse is that the economic policies have been so illogical, so transparently doomed to failure, and so threatening to America’s future.

And he’ll continue them as long as we let him. We can start to fix it in nineteen days. Read the whole thing. I agree with all of it, except the “President Newt Gingrich” part.

[Update a while later]

Comparing two recoveries:


This is why those saying that Obama’s OK, because Reagan’s approval was bad at this point, are whistling in the dark.