Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary

Iceland

19 Comments

Here’s a joke that’s been going around the Intertubes — it was the Icelandic economy’s last wish that its ashes be scattered over the EU.

Speaking of which, here’s some cheery news. There may be a bigger eruption coming.

[Update a while later]

Here are some more. I liked this one:

Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.

Heh.

Business, Economics

A Bleg For Corporate Accountants

10 Comments

Does anyone out there have any idea how much it costs to do the accounting necessary to complete a corporate return? That is, not the cost of preparing the return per se, but the costs of collecting and maintaining all of the needed data. Does having a corporate income tax impose additional costs on running a corporation that wouldn’t exist in its absence (that is, are some data tracked that the corporation wouldn’t care about in the absence of the need to file a return)? Also, how much do things like depreciation schedules skew capital purchase decisions?

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

IBD Weighs In On Space

11 Comments

Cluelessly, as with many:

Some would argue that in times of budget problems a robust space program is an unnecessary expense and that if we can’t cut there, where can we cut?

We aren’t cutting. The budget is increasing, and in particular it is increasing for things that we actually need to get beyond low earth orbit, which Mike Griffin’s NASA had eliminated funding for to pay for his expensive and unneeded new rocket.

“We’ve got to do it in a smart way,” Obama said, apparently preferring to pay the Russians $56 million a pop to send Americans to fix toilets on the International Space Station.

No, that’s not what he was referring to. That was the George Bush plan, in case you’ve been asleep for the past six years. It’s too late to fix that in the near term, but at least we now have hope of fixing it a lot sooner, for a lot less money, than Ares would have provided.

Why do all of these supposed free marketeers bash private enterprise when it comes to space?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Speaking of which, Falcon 9 is almost ready to launch.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Elon’s Position

25 Comments

He’s all in favor, natch:

By the time President Obama cancelled Ares I/Orion earlier this year, the schedule had already slipped five years to 2017 and completing development would have required another $50 billion. Moreover, the cost per flight, inclusive of overhead, was estimated to be at least $1.5 billion compared to the $1 billion of Shuttle, despite carrying only four people to Shuttle’s seven and almost no cargo.

The President quite reasonably concluded that spending $50 billion to develop a vehicle that would cost 50% more to operate, but carry 50% less payload was perhaps not the best possible use of funds.

I fail to see how anyone can come to any other conclusion. Instead, the Ares huggers just ignore the cost issue, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

So What About The Jobs?

26 Comments

I got an email today, that I thought I’d just publish:

People don’t seem to be to sympathetic to the workers who will lose their jobs with the loss of the shuttle and Constellation. If I understand you correctly, neither program should be continued just for jobs. I tend to agree with that, however, what should be done to help the people who will lose their jobs?

It would be interesting to know more about the employment situation, what type of jobs will be lost, how easy or hard it will be for workers to find new jobs, and if the government has any ideas on helping these people find work.

Do you think that there will be skilled workers who will now start their own space related companies?

Any insights would be appreciated.

Others may have better insight than I. But I would note that generally, if some event results in a loss of jobs in an area with a jobs shortage, people tend to have to move. It’s a very tough time for those losing NASA-related jobs, because it’s a tough job market out there. On the other hand, a lot of people are hurting, and might even resent the notion that there’s something special about space jobs that those losing them should get special treatment.

This may in fact have been an historical high-water mark for space-related Brevard County employment, and the end of a half-century era, when the region boomed due to a fortunate happenstance of geography. But the fundamental problem of space is the high cost of access to it. And in principle, if not practice, the purpose of NASA spending should not be job creation, but wealth or knowledge creation. If we are to reduce the costs of space transportation, we need to either reduce the number of people who work on it (because their paychecks and benefits are where the vast majority of those costs come from) or dramatically increase their productivity. Neither Shuttle or Constellation offered any prospects for doing that. Commercial might, in the longer run, but it’s not going to do anything to help the current NASA work force.

And if we develop the kinds of vehicles that we need for true significant cost reduction (fully reusable), there’s nothing magic about the Cape, in terms of launch location. So I don’t expect to ever see the levels of space employment there again that we saw from the Cold-War-legacy program. That’s a reality with which the local officials are simply going to have to come to grips.