Category Archives: Economics

How The “Stimulus” Is Working

It isn’t:

As we know, most of the stimulus spending does not take place until next year and beyond, so the short-run gains are puny. On the other hand, the big increase in the projected deficit creates the expectation of higher interest rates, which raises interest rates now. These higher interest rates serve to weaken the economy.

According to this standard analysis, the stimulus is going to hurt GDP now, when we could use the most help. Much of the spending will kick in a year or more from now, with multiplier effects following afterward, when the economy will need little, if any, stimulus.

This is the flaw with using spending rather than tax cuts as a stimulus. The lags are longer when you use spending.

Of course, if the real goal is to promote government at the expense of civil society and to create a one-party state in which business success is based on political favoritism, then the stimulus is working exactly as intended.

Yup. But it’s a misnomer to call it “stimulus.”

[Update mid afternoon]

The “reality-based community” has a collision with reality:

Cohn reports how former CBO director and current OMB chief Peter Orszag pressured careerists to assume sizable savings due to proposed reforms. The problem is the bean counters did not believe the alleged savings were justified according to the available evidence…it is interesting that the reality-based Obama crowd, which promised to roll back the “Republican War on Science” is now arguing against what Cohn calls “a super-strict reading of the evidence.”

Well, there’s science, and then there’s, you know, “scientific socialism.” Or maybe they’re just waging a war on math.

[Update late afternoon]

Wishful thinking, not a plan:

Congress is working on a health-care bill to expand coverage mainly by subsidizing insurance for tens of millions of households. This new entitlement is likely to cost $150 billion per year initially and grow, on a per capita basis, at a rate that is about 2 percentage points above GDP growth each year going forward. In other words, the cost of this new program will rise just as rapidly as Medicare and Medicaid spending has for decades now.

Orszag and others are saying, don’t worry, health-information technology, comparative-effectiveness research, more attention to prevention and wellness, and some very modest provider payment reforms in Medicare will make all of this governmental spending — on Medicare, Medicaid, and the new subsidy program — grow much more slowly in the future than it has in the past.

But this is an assertion — not a fact. Where’s the evidence to back it up?

“Wishful thinking” is a pretty good summary of Democrat policies in general, both domestic and foreign.

Rocketplane Resurrection?

I talked to George French briefly last night at the bar. He hasn’t given up on raising funds not only for Rocketplane XP, but is still hoping to revive Kistler itself. It wasn’t clear whether or not this was contingent on another bite at the COTS apple, but he’s hoping to have money reraised by August. Good luck with that in this economy. It would be nice, though, to see at least one reusable system going to orbit, after all these years.

Financial Issues In Space And Hospitality/Tourism/Entertainment

First panel is to discuss the synergy between financing for space and entertainment. “Space is not a destination.” “Space is an enabler for a variety of business verticals.” “Space accelerates and expands business verticals by providing new, disruptive ways of doing business.” Using Internmet analogy with book sales. Space-related viability may exist in areas we haven’t heard of.

Four categories: launch infrastructure, R&D and manufacturing, system operations, end-user applications. latter includes entertainment. They build on each other. “Infrastructure” is categories of large-scale hardware systems, similar to railroad lines back in 1800s. Necessary for applications: healthcare, materials, science, media/entertainment, communications, governance, energy and mining, defense, transport operations. “Governance” is things like disaster relief and planetary monitoring.

Entertainment needs infrastructure beyond mere launch — more like real estate, with facilities in space. Near-term opportunities include media and entertainment, comm and governance. Other apps are longer term. Defining media and entertainment as space tourism, ground-based training and simulations, and documentaries and GPS-related games, live video feeds from orbit, real-time earth imagery, etc.

See suborbital space tourism as important near-term app which fits cleanly within hospitality/entertainment business that requires precursor infrastructure. Virgin Galactic embodies transition — selling one-week experience with suit and simulations, not just a flight. Shouldn’t forget orbital space tourism, which is further down the road, but Bob Bigelow’s modules are an early stage of the hospitality industry in orbit.

Providing an overview of structure of hotel investment business. Major hotel chains are no longer significant investors in real estate — they manage the properties for investor groups. So don’t look to them for financing of space hotels. Look for private equity funds, insurance companies, private investment trusts, investment banks both domestic and international, which are the current industry financiers. Current markets are impacted by the financial crisis, but expects people to come back in the water in the future, because it’s a good traditional model. Hotels will be interested in participating via franchise names (e.g., Hilton) but no as investors.

What drives terrestrial hotels? Business traveler, groups and meetings, leisure. What services are required for space travel? Have to consider similarities and differences with: cruise ships, all-inclusive hotels, suborbital/orbital travel. Consider advance deposits for space hotels. Consider scuba industry as a model. Preparation somewhat similar to suborbital training in length/time, understanding of technical issues/risks. Has been very successful, and training could become significant industry in itself, even for people who don’t fly, at destination resorts.

[Late morning update]

I got pulled off into some discussions, but Jeff Foust is twittering the panels (not a permalink).

[Afternoon update]

Doug Messier blogged this panel as well.

The Contest For The Stupidest Congressman

Is the winner Alan Grayson? Would that it were true — it would be nice to think that he establishes a floor, but I think that he’s unfortunately typical, particularly among Democrats.

[Afternoon update]

Considering all of the trollery in comments, in which people desperately want to change the subject from economic ignorance to BUSH! and TORTURE! of INNOCENT TERRORISTS!, I wonder if any of them even bothered to follow the link, or just decided to pathetically play pin the tail on the Republican?