…buys the BS about SLS/Orion, sadly.
Category Archives: Economics
Elizabeth Warren
We are in the midst of a record wealth gap between America’s rich and middle class, according to the Pew Research Centers. That has fueled the populist opposition to Washington among Main Street Americans on both sides of the political line — and Warren is trying to cash in on it.
That’s fine; that’s what we do in America. But it isn’t populism, as will be seen when people do not rise up.
Populism is an ideology extolling the virtues of the people against the depravities of elites — such as Harvard Law professors like Warren, according to Baylor University political science professor Curt Nichols.
The notion that the Democrats are the party of the “little people” is insane. The two biggest donors of the 2014 election were Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, who promoted insane green policies and gun restrictions that would be devastating for the majority of Americans.
[Update a while later]
Will Warren sell outside her bubble? No better than Wendy Davis, I suspect. I’m hoping that she’ll be this cycle’s Barack Obama, when it comes to knocking off Hillary and being the nominee.
Lessons From Vermont
No, single payer is not the solution to our health-care problems.
It’s A Wonderful Fountainhead
What was It’s A Wonderful Life really about?
The Keynesians
…are wrong again. At least they’re consistent.
Five Resolutions For Republicans
Ed Morrissey has some good suggestions.
Orion And SLS
Thoughts on the fiscal challenges, from the Director of the GAO.
If you plan a planetary science mission on assumption that you'll use SLS, you're making a very risky bet.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) December 22, 2014
A Scarcity Of Start Ups
You’ll be as shocked as me to discover that it strongly correlates with an increase in influence peddling.
NASA’s Drift
I talked to Farenthold about this a few months ago, but I actually see SLS/Orion as a bigger and more dangerous waste of funds, because unlike a test stand that will almost certainly never be used, they have the vague appearance of utility to those who don’t understand the program, and will be harder to kill.
The Fatal Conceit
The Times reassuringly described Gruber as “the numbers wizard at MIT,” who has “spent decades modeling the intricacies of the health care ecosystem.” Gruber has “brought a level of science to an issue that would otherwise be just opinion.”
I might note that the Soviets used the term “science” for their own “scientific” planning commission. I drew little comfort from Professor Gruber’s scientific-planning credentials, especially when I learned “he’s the only person you can go to for that kind of thing.” Gruber, aided by his brilliant MIT graduate student assistants, is a one-man Gosplan, the name given to the Soviet Union’s state planning committee. That is not much of a recommendation. Science is better served by competing ideas not by a one-person monopoly.
Both Gruber and the USSR’s Gosplan planners believe their planning is “scientific” and executed by “the best of the best.” Both types of planning commissars suffer from F. A. Hayek’s “fatal conceit”—the belief that we can plan incredibly complex economic systems. As Hayek pointed out in his writings, such “scientific” plans inevitably fall apart under the weight of unintended consequences.
Actually, I’m not sure they’re all unintended.