It’s worth thinking about.
Category Archives: Economics
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.
How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine
Not to mention your toilet. And lighting. Sadly, it’s one of the more innocuous things they’ve ruined.
The Founders weep.
The Academic Cargo Cult
Some thoughts.
This bubble is due to burst, and I suspect the precipitating event will be the need to cut federal spending.
Nuclear Disaster In Japan
Thoughts from Ron Bailey.
How To Feed Your Family
…on only ten billion a day. Iowahawk runs the numbers.
The Fragility Of Complex Societies
Thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
I don’t know quite why many of our environmentalists and urban planners wish to emulate such patterns of settlement (OK, I do know), since for us in America it would be a matter of choice, rather than, as in a highly congested Japan, one of necessity. Putting us in apartments and high rises, reliant on buses and trains, and dependent on huge centralized power, water, and sewage grids are recipes not for ecological utopia, but for a level of dependence and vulnerability that could only lead to disaster. Again, I understand that in terms of efficiency of resource utilization, such densities make sense and I grant that culture sparks where people are, but in times of calamity these regimens prove enormously fragile and a fool’s bargain.
Actually, many of them do favor decentralization and “appropriate” technology. But most of them also favor depopulation. And some of those favor it by whatever means are necessary.