Category Archives: Economics

“Bone-Headed Beliefs”

Res ipsa loquitur:

Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.

Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”

On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy. So how about they are forced to buy property on low-lying islands, the sort of property that will become worthless with a few more centimetres of ocean rise, so they are bankrupted by their own bloody-mindedness?

Yes, that’s much more reasonable.

Going Galt

Obama tunes out, and business goes on a hiring strike:

After April 13 Obama Democrats went into campaign mode. They staged a poll-driven Senate vote to increase taxes on oil companies.

They began a Mediscare campaign against Ryan’s budget resolution that all but four House Republicans had voted for. That seemed to pay off with a special election victory in New York’s 26th Congressional District.

The message to job creators was clear. Hire at your own risk. Higher taxes, more burdensome regulation and crony capitalism may be here for some time to come.

I’m hoping for not more than another year and a half, until January, 2013. We’ll probably survive that long, though there will be a lot of unnecessary suffering. I don’t want to think about another five years of it.

Economic Stagnation

explained at thirty-thousand feet. And our masters in Washington have no idea how destructive their idiotic policies are. Or perhaps they do.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Marxian worm. Which reminds me of the piece I wrote a while back: You just might be a Marxist.

[Update a couple minutes later]

It occurs to me for the first time that a cost-plus contract is intrinsically Marxist in nature. There is an implicit assumption that value is produced when the contractor is reimbursed for time and materials.

[Update a few minutes later]

An oldie but goody: Cultural Marxism.

The COTS Hearings

Based on the Twitter feed, it looks like the committee continue to be (as Michael Mealling tweets) asshats, but at least it was an opportunity for Gwynne to explain costs to them. There are lies, damned lies, and Congressional cost estimates (note in comments at the link “Edgar”‘s analysis — I wonder if that’s Edgar Zapata?). I’ll be curious to see Jeff Foust’s report later, though we probably won’t see it until Monday, at The Space Review.

[Update a few minutes later]

More on the cooked books from Keith Cowing. I’m guessing the culprit is Ken Monroe, head staffer.