No, Joe, it didn’t help end the Depression. It extended it.
Category Archives: Economics
High-Speed Rail
From Beijing to CONUS? Under the Bering Strait?
I don’t think so.
The Climate Debate Is Over
…and the alarmists lost.
[Update a while later]
Why is Obama getting a pass on his climate lies?
Really, at this point, why does anyone believe anything he says any more?
3-D Printing And Spaceflight
Ten ways it could revolutionize it.
I really think we are on the verge of the most exciting era for human spaceflight since the sixties.
“Shovel Ready” Jobs
Why does the Left hate work?
Some on the right think this strategy is part of a grand plan. They see an increase in the number of Americans who are dependent on the federal government as beneficial to Democrats, who largely win the votes of those to whom they offer ever-higher benefits and welfare. I refuse to imagine that any such insidious thinking is behind the left’s refusal to embrace job creation.
I believe, instead, that it springs from a wide-spread lack of private sector experience. President Obama believes the government can right all wrongs – that’s the wellspring from which community activists derive their inspiration. It is a philosophy that has done great damage to this country in recent years – and we’re not out of the woods yet.
I think she’s too kind.
The National Climate “Assessment”
Judith Curry has the goods on this latest bout of junk science:
My main conclusion from reading the report is this: the phrase ‘climate change’ is now officially meaningless. The report effectively implies that there is no climate change other than what is caused by humans, and that extreme weather events are equivalent to climate change. Any increase in adverse impacts from extreme weather events or sea level rise is caused by humans. Possible scenarios of future climate change depend only on emissions scenarios that are translated into warming by climate models that produce far more warming than has recently been observed.
Roger Pielke approves.
Cancer
Have they really found a cure?
…the developments at Penn point, tantalizingly, to something more, something that would rank among the great milestones in the history of mankind: a true cure. Of 25 children and 5 adults with Emily’s disease, ALL, 27 had a complete remission, in which cancer becomes undetectable.“
It’s a stunning breakthrough,” says Sally Church, of drug development advisor Icarus Consultants. Says Crystal Mackall, who is developing similar treatments at the National Cancer Institute: “It really is a revolution. This is going to open the door for all sorts of cell-based and gene therapy for all kinds of disease because it’s going to demonstrate that it’s economically viable.”
Also:
“I’ve told the team that resources are not an issue. Speed is the issue,” says Novartis Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez, 54. “I want to hear what it takes to run this phase III trial and to get this to market. You’re talking about patients who are about to die. The pain of having to turn patients away is such that we are going as fast as we can and not letting resources get in the way.”
Yes. Faster please.
Health-Care Spending
The notion that the ACA will reduce it is Obama’s biggest lie?
I don’t know. It’s got a lot of stiff competition.
The Deindustrialization Of California
Why both Nissan and Toyota left the no-longer Golden State.
I’ll bet if South California happens, they’d consider returning there.
In fact, that brings up a point that a lot of people miss when analyzing what the new states’ politics would be. They do so (as far as I know) by analyzing the current population of each region. But as I’ve said, if it really happened, I’d pull up stakes in LA County and head to Orange County. I’ll bet a lot of other people would as well. Which means that whatever sensible voters are currently in what would be West California would likely abandon it, making it even more socialist, and accelerating its fiscal collapse.
[Update a few minutes later]
I hadn’t read the whole piece when I posted the above, but this is an interesting point, in terms of why Nissan and Toyota were there in the first place:
As did the oil industry, the auto industry, and, particularly, its Asian contingent, came to Southern California for good reasons. Some had to do with proximity to the largest port complex in North America, as well as the cultural comfort associated with the large Asian communities here. Back in the 1980s, the expansion of firms like Honda, Toyota and Nissan seemed to epitomize the unique appeal of the L.A. region – and California – to Asian companies. Today, only Honda retains its headquarters in Los Angeles (Nissan left in 2005), while Korean carmakers Hyundai and Kia make their U.S. homes in Orange County.
First, note that the Koreans wouldn’t have to move — they’d already be in the new state. Also, the port is just a few miles north of the Orange County line. That is, just a few miles north of the new state line. So it would make a world of sense for the Japanese companies to move back to South California, and for Honda to head a few miles south. Particularly if the new state had no state income tax…
Falcon-9R
…just flew to over 3000 feet and back in Texas.
It looks as though it could be CGI, but it’s a rocket taking off and landing as God and Bob Heinlein intended. Don’t know how much higher they can go at that site before they have to start flying out of Spaceport America to expand the envelope.