Category Archives: Economics

The Zero-Sum Candidate

Both Barack and Michelle Obama have a collectivist mentality:

Jeff Dobbs, a little while back, saw Michelle Obama’s statement that “The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”

…Barack Obama today: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

Would an Obama Administration really mean an end to “eating as much as we want?”

There is an implicit assumption here that, in order for one person (or country) to have more, another must thereby have less. This is the view of a person who views wealth not as something that is created, but something that simply exists, and the only important issue is how to divvy it up. But no one in Zimbabwe is starving because I took food away from them and ate it myself. They are starving in former Rhodesia, and in North Korea, and other places, because the governments there, in thrall to greed and the poisonous ideology of collectivism, have destroyed the agricultural sector.

What are the Obamas going to take away from us to give to someone else? And how will they decide from whom to take it, and to whom to give it? And what means will they choose to do so?

And which countries’ approval are we seeking? Egypt, to whom we give billions a year in aid? France? Germany? The Europeans seemed to be well fed, last time I checked.

My mother, who used to tell me to clean my plate in the sixties because there were children starving in China, had her mother tell her to clean her plate during the depression because there were children starving in Europe. Who is it that Obama is asking (telling?) us to clean our plates (or better yet, put less on them) for? Will he set up rationing? Will Michelle be in charge of the rationing board and pie distribution?

Hungry stomachs want to know, before November.

The sad thing, of course, is that our agricultural policies, which actually increase the cost of our food (though we’re wealthy enough to afford it, at least until the Obamas take over), are also complicit in destroying the agricultural sector of many third-world countries, by providing foreign aid in the form of subsidized grain and depressing the price of food there, making farming a non-viable economic activity. What will Barack do about that?

[Update a few minutes later]

This doesn’t speak so much to their collectivism, but Charlotte Hays asks:

I loved Obama telling us how how “unacceptable” and “low class” it would be for us to to mention his wife’s anti-American remarks. How’s he gonna stop us? (I certainly hope he will have a tougher approach when negotiating with dictators!) And, come to think of it, this isn’t the first time Obama has said that anti-American “snippets” by a close associate were taken out of context. We get to decide if we think this is relevant, not the candidate.

Do we really want to be bossed around by these arrogant people and their double standards for four years?

[Update in the afternoon]

Rachel Lucas and her commenters aren’t very impressed by Obama’s Calvin-ball campaign rules.

So I just want to know what happens if Republican’s aren’t “careful.” Is he gonna give them karate? Write a strongly worded letter of disapproval?

Doomsday Has Been Postponed, Part Whatever

More thoughts on “peak oil,” and what I’ll call the “peak oil constant,” which seems to be twenty or thirty years (i.e., it’s always predicted to be that far in the future).

[Update mid afternoon]

Manzi has a follow up, in response to a Georgetown professor. Bottom line:

What if we had reacted to the predictions throughout the 1970s and 80s that we would reach peak oil in about 2000? Do you think that some of these proposed changes would have slowed economic growth and prevented the world from being in the current position of paying an ever-dwindling share of total output for oil? What other difficult-to-anticipate changes might some these interventions have had? Could the idea of purposely restructuring the transportation, housing, and agricultural sectors of the U.S. economy based on a prediction for an event that we have proven to be very bad at predicting – and for which the world’s leading experts refuse to provide anything other than very broad guidance – induce a sense of humility? It does in me.

Some Questions For John McCain

From George Will:

You say that even if global warming turns out to be no crisis (the World Meteorological Organization says global temperatures have not risen in a decade), even unnecessary measures taken to combat it will be beneficial because “then all we’ve done is give our kids a cleaner world.” But what of the trillions of dollars those measures will cost in direct expenditures and diminished economic growth–hence diminished medical research, cultural investment, etc.? Given that Earth is always warming or cooling, what is its proper temperature, and how do you know?

You propose a “cap and trade” system to limit the carbon dioxide that many companies can emit. Is not your idea an energy- rationing proposal akin to Bill Clinton’s BTU tax?

He has more, not related to climate change.

Also, a long paper on the futility of trading hot air.

It’s Not Just A Bad Idea, It’s The Law

There’s a long piece on the the current state of space law over at the ABA Journal. I only have a couple issues with it. First, I don’t know what they mean by this:

Even though the United States eventually outpaced the Soviet Union by putting men on the moon in 1969, the space race continued until the early 1990s.

No, the space race was essentially over by 1968 or so, once the Russians realized that they weren’t going to beat us to the moon, and instead rewrote history to pretend that they’d never even been trying. There was no urgency or racing after that–had there been, NASA budgets would have been higher, and schedules faster. So I don’t know what this sentence means, unless it just a vague reference to the fact that progress, such as it was, continue on both the US and Soviet side, until the fall of the Soviet Union.

On ITAR, I strongly disagree with Pam Meridith:

“I think the hysteria over ITARs is out of proportion,” says Pamela L. Meredith, who co-chairs the space law practice group at Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasen­berger in Washington, D.C. “They’ve been around for a long time now, so people have had time to adjust.”

No matter how much “time people have to adjust,” it still adds time and cost to projects, and prevents many from happening altogether. And it has a disproportionate effect–like most regulations, big space businesses (who despite leftist mythology, are no fans of capitalism or free enterprise) don’t necessarily dislike ITAR, because they can afford to meet the requirements, and they represent a barrier to entry to smaller businesses and newcomers, who generally can’t. (Though there’s also no question that it’s cost Boeing a lot of satellite business.) And as a perfect case in point, consider Mike Gold at Bigelow (in a long, but quite interesting interview):

Res Communis: Can you comment on a company’s cost of implementing ITAR?

Gold: Yes, absolutely. Paying so much for export control is a bit like being asked not just to dig your own grave, but to jump in it as well. Our best estimates are that we pay roughly $130.00 per hour, per person, for every hour that a government official monitors us or reviews our documentation during the day, plus overtime, which can add up on overseas trips. What amazes me is that when we travel to Russia for meetings, we sometimes travel with not one, but two government officials, monitoring every word we say. Then, across the table from us are the Russians, all great folks, who came out of a Communist system, and they have no explicit monitors. If we were to have brought someone down from Mars to attend our meetings, and asked them which of these two nations represented the free country, the Martian would point to the Russians. The U.S. holds itself out as the bastion of freedom. But when I am sitting there at those meetings I have to wonder: which is the free country? Now again, this is a problem of policy not personnel. The monitors we get are often good, smart people, who can even be quite helpful at times. However, what I want is for these monitors to be able to spend their limited time and resources focusing on military sensitive technologies that really matter rather than wasting their efforts on us. The Russians basically do this. They have the unique policy of protecting information that is actually sensitive. They don’t care about metal coffee tables. It makes a lot more sense. And, in regard to the financial costs, you know, the KGB may have spied on you back in the Soviet days, but at least they had the courtesy to do it for free. It is unfathomable to me what we have to pay for export control review and monitoring.

Res Communis: You do cover their travel expenses also?

Gold: Absolutely, including airfare and hotel. Specifically, in 2006, the year of the Genesis I campaign, we paid over $160,000 in monitoring fees alone. In 2007, when the Genesis II launch campaign took place, we paid the government nearly $150,000 for monitoring and reviews. Thanks to Mr. Bigelow’s generosity and commitment, we’re able to afford such fees, but there are a lot of small companies that can’t. This is why the ITAR has stifled innovation and stunted development in the American aerospace sector. The ITAR should be re-named “The Full Employment for European and Foreign Aerospace Workers Act.”

Res Communis: As between a new space company like Bigelow and the big aerospace corporations, is the ITAR burden disproportionate for the new companies?

Gold: Everyone has problems with it, but a large, well established company is better able to absorb the expenses and can pass the cost on to their customers relatively easily. Anecdotally, I have spoken to a number of friends and colleagues at small aerospace businesses and start-ups. They tell me that they don’t even look at international collaboration because they know they can’t afford to work through the export control problems without a hoard of attorneys. Frankly, it took a lot of work and diligence and a little bit of luck on our own part to have been able to survive the ITAR gauntlet with just myself, my deputy, and some limited support from outside counsel.

And because Bigelow is wealthy, and willing to foot the bill, he can afford it. Most startups aren’t in this position. This is just one of the many ways that federal policy has been disastrous, and continues to help bind us to the planet.

It’s Not Just A Bad Idea, It’s The Law

There’s a long piece on the the current state of space law over at the ABA Journal. I only have a couple issues with it. First, I don’t know what they mean by this:

Even though the United States eventually outpaced the Soviet Union by putting men on the moon in 1969, the space race continued until the early 1990s.

No, the space race was essentially over by 1968 or so, once the Russians realized that they weren’t going to beat us to the moon, and instead rewrote history to pretend that they’d never even been trying. There was no urgency or racing after that–had there been, NASA budgets would have been higher, and schedules faster. So I don’t know what this sentence means, unless it just a vague reference to the fact that progress, such as it was, continue on both the US and Soviet side, until the fall of the Soviet Union.

On ITAR, I strongly disagree with Pam Meridith:

“I think the hysteria over ITARs is out of proportion,” says Pamela L. Meredith, who co-chairs the space law practice group at Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasen­berger in Washington, D.C. “They’ve been around for a long time now, so people have had time to adjust.”

No matter how much “time people have to adjust,” it still adds time and cost to projects, and prevents many from happening altogether. And it has a disproportionate effect–like most regulations, big space businesses (who despite leftist mythology, are no fans of capitalism or free enterprise) don’t necessarily dislike ITAR, because they can afford to meet the requirements, and they represent a barrier to entry to smaller businesses and newcomers, who generally can’t. (Though there’s also no question that it’s cost Boeing a lot of satellite business.) And as a perfect case in point, consider Mike Gold at Bigelow (in a long, but quite interesting interview):

Res Communis: Can you comment on a company’s cost of implementing ITAR?

Gold: Yes, absolutely. Paying so much for export control is a bit like being asked not just to dig your own grave, but to jump in it as well. Our best estimates are that we pay roughly $130.00 per hour, per person, for every hour that a government official monitors us or reviews our documentation during the day, plus overtime, which can add up on overseas trips. What amazes me is that when we travel to Russia for meetings, we sometimes travel with not one, but two government officials, monitoring every word we say. Then, across the table from us are the Russians, all great folks, who came out of a Communist system, and they have no explicit monitors. If we were to have brought someone down from Mars to attend our meetings, and asked them which of these two nations represented the free country, the Martian would point to the Russians. The U.S. holds itself out as the bastion of freedom. But when I am sitting there at those meetings I have to wonder: which is the free country? Now again, this is a problem of policy not personnel. The monitors we get are often good, smart people, who can even be quite helpful at times. However, what I want is for these monitors to be able to spend their limited time and resources focusing on military sensitive technologies that really matter rather than wasting their efforts on us. The Russians basically do this. They have the unique policy of protecting information that is actually sensitive. They don’t care about metal coffee tables. It makes a lot more sense. And, in regard to the financial costs, you know, the KGB may have spied on you back in the Soviet days, but at least they had the courtesy to do it for free. It is unfathomable to me what we have to pay for export control review and monitoring.

Res Communis: You do cover their travel expenses also?

Gold: Absolutely, including airfare and hotel. Specifically, in 2006, the year of the Genesis I campaign, we paid over $160,000 in monitoring fees alone. In 2007, when the Genesis II launch campaign took place, we paid the government nearly $150,000 for monitoring and reviews. Thanks to Mr. Bigelow’s generosity and commitment, we’re able to afford such fees, but there are a lot of small companies that can’t. This is why the ITAR has stifled innovation and stunted development in the American aerospace sector. The ITAR should be re-named “The Full Employment for European and Foreign Aerospace Workers Act.”

Res Communis: As between a new space company like Bigelow and the big aerospace corporations, is the ITAR burden disproportionate for the new companies?

Gold: Everyone has problems with it, but a large, well established company is better able to absorb the expenses and can pass the cost on to their customers relatively easily. Anecdotally, I have spoken to a number of friends and colleagues at small aerospace businesses and start-ups. They tell me that they don’t even look at international collaboration because they know they can’t afford to work through the export control problems without a hoard of attorneys. Frankly, it took a lot of work and diligence and a little bit of luck on our own part to have been able to survive the ITAR gauntlet with just myself, my deputy, and some limited support from outside counsel.

And because Bigelow is wealthy, and willing to foot the bill, he can afford it. Most startups aren’t in this position. This is just one of the many ways that federal policy has been disastrous, and continues to help bind us to the planet.