Yes, and sow the ground with salt.
Category Archives: Economics
America The Weird
Victor Davis Hanson on the appeal of the West:
America remains the exceptional Western nation, whose influence and stature transcend the size of its economy and population, and its vast land mass of rich natural resources. Its cocktail of property rights, unfettered oil and gas development, muscular national defense, gun rights, religiosity, free-market economics, limited government, philanthropy, and great private universities is, again, unlike anything in the West.
Likewise, its excesses that arise from the marriage of free-market affluence and constitutionally protected unfettered expression, in the eyes of the world, appear often as license and indulgence. Certainly, the First and Second Amendments, the National Football League, rap music, the U.S. Marine Corps, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Ivy League, or 24/7 cable news could not originate elsewhere.
The result is that America exists both as the world’s refuge and its beacon, the sole place where individuals can find a safe harbor. Only in America can the individual remain free and able to live his life under the assumption that the major decisions of his life are his own and not predicated on state approval. Only in the United States does the rags to riches story still exist, given that neither regulation, the deep state, nor an entrenched aristocracy can fully suppress entrepreneurs or aspiring capitalists.
A key goal of my Outer Space Treaty project is to extend this to the solar system. Speaking of which, Michael Listner has an analysis of the latest U.S. legislation along these lines.
Bridenstine
He didn’t make any friends in Huntsville with his brief speech on return to the moon today. So, off to a good start.
[Late-afternoon update]
[Update a while later]
Another report from Marcia Smith.
CBO Estimates
Why they are useless BS, that can’t provide a guide to policy. Remember how the “tax cuts” were going to increase the deficit?
All told the government collected $515 billion and spent $297 billion, for a total monthly surplus of $218 billion. That swamped the previous monthly record of $190 billion, set in 2001.
CBO analysts were surprised by the surplus, which was some $40 billion more than they’d guessed at less than a month ago.
Analysts said they’ll have a better idea of what’s behind the surge as more information rolls in, but for now said it looks like individual taxpayers are paying more because they have higher incomes.
You don’t say.
Orion
The latest on overruns and slips from the GAO. As I often note, overruns and slips on a program like this and SLS are a feature, not a bug. At least until they finally get canceled.
“He Wants To Go To Mars, Dammit”
Eric Berger has a longish piece on the debut of Block 5 Falcon 9, and its implications.
A Space Nuclear Reactor
…has passed its initial tests. This is one of the most useful things I’ve seen to come out of NASA in a while. Just think what we could be doing if we were doing more of this kind of thing, instead of building a giant rocket and capsule.
The Internet’s Creators
Their regrets on how they wrecked it.
And thoughts from James Lileks.
I am often snarky on Twitter, but I don’t have any trouble not being profane or cruel.
The Falcon Heavy
Boeing says it’s “too small.”
130-ton (tonne?) payload for SLS is the 65,000 pounds of the Shuttle, in that it will never happen.https://t.co/DdKWcbVD9U
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 1, 2018
Happy May Day
…better known as victims of communism day. And it’s a tragic condemnation of our “educational” system that young people (and too many old people) don’t understand how horrific this philosophy is.
[Afternoon update]
[Late-afternoon update]
Sarah Hoyt (who would know): A remembrance of May Days past.
[Wednesday-morning update]
