Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Paul Ryan, Extremist

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Thoughts from George Will on Romney’s pick:

When Ryan said in Norfolk, “We won’t replace our Founding principles, we will reapply them,” he effectively challenged Obama to say what Obama believes, which is: Madison was an extremist in enunciating the principles of limited government — the enumeration and separation of powers. And Jefferson was an extremist in asserting that government exists not to grant rights but to “secure” natural rights that pre-exist government.

Romney’s selection of a running mate was, in method and outcome, presidential. It underscores how little in the last four years merits that adjective.

With a bonus discussion of what Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King had in common.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Why Barack Obama Is Scared As Hell Of Paul Ryan

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Because as Iowahawk says, the president has to fear the math.

I wish that the debate was between Obama and Ryan, rather than Obama and Romney. Because Ryan versus Biden is going to be Godzilla on Bambi. Except Bambi didn’t have hairplugs.

[Sunday morning update]

Watch and tremble, Democrats. Lines around the block to see Romney-Ryan in North Carolina, while the donks are worried about filling their convention hall there.

It’s not 2008 any more. And considering what happened in Wisconsin earlier this year, I suspect it’s going to look a lot more like 2010.

[Afternoon update]

I don’t know about the “hope” part, but this is definitely change: “Only $51 to enter an Obama fundraiser in Chicago, but the room is only half full.”

I think they may run out of money before the election. It would seem fitting that his campaign’s finances are run pretty much the way they’ve been governing.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Milquetoast Mitt

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Mark Steyn says that Romney has to get a little more apocalyptic:

As noted here previously, the International Monetary Fund predicts that China will become the world’s dominant economic power by 2016. So the guy elected in November will be the first president since Grover Cleveland to know what it feels like to be the global also-ran. Even this, however, understates the size of catastrophe the United States faces. There are no precedents in history for a great power spending itself to death on the scale America is doing. Obama has added $5 trillion to the national debt, and has nothing to show for it. Do you know how difficult that is to do? Personal debt per citizen is currently about 50 grand, but at least you got a La-Z-Boy recliner and a gas-fired barbecue out of it. Obama has spent America’s future, and left no more trace than if he and his high-school “choom gang” had wheeled a barrow of 5 trillion in large notes behind the gym and used them for rolling paper. Right now, combined total debt in the United States is just shy of $700,000 per family. Add in the so-called “unfunded liabilities” that a normal American business would have to include in its SEC filings but that U.S.-government accounting conveniently absolves itself from, and you’re talking about a debt burden per family of about a million bucks. In other words, look around you: the paved roads, the landscaped shopping mall, the Starbucks and the juice bar and the mountain-bike store . . . There’s nothing holding the joint up.

Hmm. “There’s nothing holding the joint up. Steyn 2012”: How’s that poll with the focus groups? Not exactly “Morning in America,” is it? But what happens when you blithely ignore debt for a few decades? Here’s a headline from the Wall Street Journal’s “Smart Money” this very week: “More retirees are falling behind on student debt, and Uncle Sam is coming after their benefits.” Maybe that’s the slogan. “It’s twilight in America: More retirees are falling behind on student debt.”

The good news is that this was probably written before the news of the Ryan pick. It will be interesting to see Mark’s response to that.

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Space, Technology and Society

My Mars Spreadsheet

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As a response to popular request (actually, no one asked except Jon Goff), I’ve cleaned up and uploaded my spreadsheet.

Other than the astonishing results themselves, the only thing that makes me suspicious is that the total delta V required for the mission with the stop for gas is less than that required for the direct trip (about seven km/s for the latter and about six for the former). But I’ve looked at it multiple times, and don’t see anything wrong with what I did. I’m guessing that, if this is right, it has something to do with the oddities of patched conics. But it would be nice to get some more eyes looking at the problem.

[Update a few minutes later]

Don’t waste too much time looking at that. I just noticed some problems. I’ll update when I’ve fixed.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, I’ve uploaded a new version. The good news is that I found the problem, and the total delta V is now more for the trip with the gas stop than without (which it seemed it should have been). It’s now about four and a half kilometers per second for the direct case, and about six for the gas stop. The bad news is that the advantage has dropped significantly. The propellant ratio, rather than ten and more than twenty for the EML1 and LEO cases without refueling, is now more like three and five. Still, it’s a significant improvement.

I should note that this is an excellent example of a need to have a feel for the numbers, and not just trust what comes out of a computer (as I fear too many young people do these days). If you don’t know intuitively proper orders of magnitude, or recognize suspicious results, you’re likely to make a lot of errors when doing complex calculations, particularly if you are operating in an environment of confirmation bias (I really, really liked the first, incorrect results). I’m looking at you, climate modelers…

[Update a few minutes later]

One more update to the spreadsheet. I noticed that in fixing the calculations, my delta Vs had become unbalanced, so I adjusted the gas station orbit slightly to rebalance them. The new orbit is 1.256 AU.