Keith Cowing, Marcia Smith and Jeff Foust all have reports on General Bolden’s comments yesterday, some of which were in response to questions from Keith. I would note (as Jeff does) that Congress doesn’t want a vehicle sized in metric tons — it asked for one in tons. NASA seems to have confused this issue by sizing in MT, and now Keith and Marcia are stating that as though it’s the requirement. But that oversizes the system considerably, as I noted in my satirical but sadly accurate robot theater a few weeks ago.
Category Archives: Economics
No Kidding
Our tax code is corrupt.
Government Worship
Taken to new heights, by “no one messes with” Joe Biden. Matt Welch eviscerates accordingly.
Dampening The Asteroid Mining Market
Behold: a carbon-nanotube catalyst that’s over six hundred times more effective than platinum.
[Update a few minutes later]
Sorry, that was sloppy. More cost-effective (that is, cheaper) than platinum, not six hundred times better as a catalyst.
This Explains So Much
According to noted exobiologist Hugo Chavez, life on Mars was destroyed by capitalism.
Time To End The Fed?
It’s worth thinking about.
Solving The Real Problem
One of the most bizarre aspects of contemporary space policy is the degree to which the policy establishment has completely thrown in the towel on reducing the cost of access to orbit, as exemplified by the Senate Launch System. Stewart Money lays out the technical issues on the off chance that the community will come to its senses and decide that this is an important goal.
But It’s Not Enough For The Theftists
The US taxes the rich more than any other OECD country.
Markets Don’t Ration
…people do. The difference is who makes the decisions.
A Bit Of Good News
The law-school bubble is popping:
“I’m hearing from the students I work with that they are concerned about the value of a law degree,” said Tim Stiles, a career adviser at the University of North Carolina. Students, he said, often tell him they have read press accounts about the difficulty of finding law jobs.
Some students are starting to feel they don’t need an advanced degree to improve their career opportunities, college advisers said.
Business-school applications for the fall 2011 class have not been tallied yet by the Graduate Management Admission Council. But last year, the average number of applications to full-time graduate programs declined 1.8%, the Council said, the first decline since 2005.
“When the economy first went down, students saw law school as a way to dodge the work force,” said Ryan Heitkamp, a pre-law adviser at Ohio State University. “The news has gotten out that law school is not necessarily a safe backup plan.”
It’s not just good news because it’s generally good news when bubbles finally deflate, at least for productive activity. It’s also good news because the overproduction of lawyers in itself has high external costs on society. I wish that we could swap a million or so for Japanese engineers.