Will SpaceX get the tunnel-boring machine that just finished up its work on the Crenshaw-LAX line?
Category Archives: Economics
LIDAR
An affordable solid-state one for autonomous vehicles. This could have space applications for autodocking and mating.
Choice In Health Care
Trump starts to give it to veterans.
But wait! I thought single-payer was great?
The Trump Voters
They want respect, and here’s how to give it to them:
…trade and immigration haven’t been so costless for everyone. Those things provide the most benefit to cosmopolitan people who enjoy global travel (and have the means — professional or personal — to do a lot of it), who can hire nannies and landscapers to do work that other people have to do themselves, who have a taste for strange foreign foods, who are not directly competing with immigrants for jobs, because their jobs tend to be highly language-intensive, or rely on U.S.-specific social capital, in a way that’s hard to outsource. Immigration and trade have been worse for people who compete with immigrants, or tradeable goods and services, and who value a particular community and place over novelty.
Elites, then, tend to give themselves too much moral credit for their position, overlooking the fact that it is always easier to be in favor of enhancing the welfare of others if those enhancements do not cost you anything. But I think that’s not the only thing they overlook.
For one thing, they often seem oblivious to the fact that people care more about their role as workers than they do as consumers. If you go from having a relatively high status and secure job to lower status, lower-paid, and less secure work, the psychological stress of worrying about your future and feeling that you have lost ground may not exceed the psychological benefits of cheaper stuff.
Want to get more Trump? That’s how you get more Trump.
Hyperloop
Several proposed routes. Some make more sense than others, to me. I’m surprised there’s no LA-Vegas.
California
How it gave us Trumpism.
The Outer Space Treaty
Bob Zimmerman says that Trump should open up the solar system by renegotiating the deal.
How United Happens
Thoughts from Charlie Martin.
It’s very clear that this wasn’t caused by overbooking per se, and all of the outraged economic ignorance about it would be astounding if I didn’t see so much economic ignorance in general.
Trump To Democrats
“Negotiate on ObamaCare, or I’ll enforce the law“:
At stake are “cost sharing” payments that Obamacare backers say are supposed to be made to insurance companies to cover their losses from low-income customers.
A federal court has invalidated the payments, saying the Obama administration spent the money even though Congress specifically stripped the funds from its annual spending bills.
The government is still making the payments pending an appeal of the case, but Mr. Trump hinted last week that he would halt the payments himself, forcing Obamacare into a quick death unless Democrats agree to negotiate over major changes to the Affordable Care Act.
“If Congress doesn’t approve it, or if I don’t approve it, that would mean that Obamacare doesn’t have enough money, so it dies immediately as opposed to over a period of time,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
Live by the pen and phone, die by the pen and phone.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: What is Trump’s deal?
he confusion here is rooted in trying to figure out what Trump’s convictions are, what his foreign policy is. This inevitably goes astray, because Trump doesn’t actually have any firm convictions, at least along those lines. He can be in favor of and against gun control; be against the government being involved in healthcare and in favor of a government single-payer system; be opposed to bombing Syria and okay with Tomahawk cruise missiles striking Syrian airbases—because he doesn’t actually have any sort of coherent large-scale vision or any particular ideals about the human condition.
He’s a salesman. What he cares about is the Deal. He even says it outright: his autobiographical business book is called The Art of the Deal.
If you want to understand salesmen, the best start is to watch the famous “Always Be Closing” speech from Glengarry Glen Ross.
“Always Be Closing” is not David Mamet’s invention, it’s an observation. It was the advice given to salesmen back at least into the ’60s when I was reading sales training materials that my grandfather had for the salesmen that worked selling pianos and appliances in the family business. (Yes, I actually will read anything.) It’s the advice given to salespeople now.
“Always Be Closing” means everything you do should be in the service of getting the deal, getting a signature and a check.
Whatever else one may think of Trump, you have to admit that Trump is a master salesman. Look at the campaign, where he took various positions — expel Muslims, deport Mexicans, or well, maybe not all Muslims, and Mexicans are mostly wonderful people — one after another, clearly responding to the reaction. Always Be Closing: he made sure his positions got him closer to closing the deal on the presidency. Did it matter that he contradicted himself? No! Concerns about things like that weren’t helping him close the deal.
This has been clear to me from day one. Beyond his boorishness, his utter lack of principles or coherent worldview was the reason so many principled conservatives (and libertarians) opposed him. But I’m still glad she lost.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Trump’s choice: Populism or corporatism.
It’s a shame that neither are particularly principled. The Founders would weep.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Corporate America’s support for the Paris agreement is why Trump should get us out of it.
Well, it’s not the only reason, but yeah.
The New Air Force Launch Procurement
Some thoughts from “Main Engine Cut Off.”
I’m glad to see that Congress isn’t pushing the AR1 as hard as it’s been. This looks, ultimately, like bad news for AJR. They’re going to have to become more competitive if they want to maintain their business. They’re trying to do it with printing engine parts, but I don’t know if it will be enough. They’re going to have to really slice overhead, I think.