Category Archives: Political Commentary

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.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Ahmadinejad Is No Rube

14 Comments

He’s clearly got Barack Obama’s number:

Unlike the United States, Iran is run by adults. This is why the world fears Iran more than it fears the United States.

Has there been any rally to the side of the United States in this dispute?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows this and so he mocked Obama: “Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer (to politics). Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience. Be careful not to read just any paper put in front of you or repeat any statement recommended. (American officials) bigger than you, more bullying than you, couldn’t do a damn thing, let alone you.”

I remember thirty years ago, when there was so much “liberal” concern that Ronald Reagan would lead the US into war. But just as in 1938, it’s feckless thinking and policies like these that are much more likely to, and one for which we’re not prepared.

[Update a few minutes later]

Thoughts of allies and enemies past:

Why does this matter, other than that it is stupid for a country to treat old friends like belligerents and old belligerents like friends?

In the case of Britain, history resonates. Over the last century it was Britain that, sometimes alone, defended liberal constitutional government, whether from Prussian militarism or the hydra of fascism, Nazism, and Japanese militarism. It was always a reliable partner in the Cold War, and aside from normal periodic spats was a loyal ally in most of America’s postwar fights. We forget sometimes the courageous record of the British in Korea, or their lonely alliance with us in Iraq. Note that this is all apart from the British role in general in the shaping of Western liberal political history, and in particular the protocols and values that underlie so much of the American experiment, from a common language to a rich heritage of literature and thought. For an American president to be woefully ignorant of all that, and why it should count, is nothing short of unbelievable.

Obama is equally clueless about why, for a half-century at least, both Republican and Democratic presidents have forged a second special relationship, this one with Israel. There certainly were not always strategic advantages in doing so, given the Arab world’s vast petroleum reserves, its huge size and population in comparison to tiny Israel, and the global fear, first, of rampant Soviet-inspired Palestinian terrorism, and, subsequently, its radical Islamic epigone.

But he’s throwing that all away. Let’s just hope that 2013 isn’t too late to resurrect the relationships.

History, Political Commentary

No Roosevelt

11 Comments

Democrats fantasize that Barack Obama is the new FDR. But I think that history will view him as the Democrats’ Herbert Hoover.

Discuss.

[Noon update]

Not that he can’t be usefully compared to other presidents as well, but the parallels I was thinking of were:

  • Had a major financial crisis in his first term, made immeasurably worse by economically ignorant policies of his own
  • Lost over fifty House seats in his mid-term Congressional election, and eight Senate seats
  • Lost in a landslide in his reelection, cementing the fortunes of the opposing party for many years

The latter two are predictions, of course. And Hoover didn’t lose control of Congress. Obama doesn’t have that kind of margin in the House…

[Afternoon update]

Obama the undergrad:

He doesn’t know much history (he thinks Muslims invented printing), geography (his America has 57 states), or economics (he believes you can reduce health care costs by adding millions to the public rolls).

The most important thing to this president is how you feel and what you say, not all those annoying facts (50 states, the Chinese invented printing, and you increase deficits when you spend more). And, like most students, when the debate goes badly for him, the president makes fun of his critics–when he actually lets them talk a little bit. Remember when he hosted a few Republicans in the White House so he could listen to what they might say about health care…and then talked twice as much as they did?

As a typical undergrad, Obama loves to talk, and loves to talk about peace and justice. You know, the really important things. His new nuclear policy is right out of a college bull session: “Why don’t we just promise not to use them?” Nukes are bad, ugly things. Doesn’t everyone agree that the world would be better off without them?

As Michael notes, grading time is coming up this fall. Expect him to whine about them.

Political Commentary, Space

Ah, Youth

3 Comments

This was kind of amusing:

On Sunday a group of Embry-Riddle students organized their own “Roadside Awareness Rally” about the new plan, holding signs along a Daytona Beach road with slogans like “Let Us Go To The Moon” and, bizarrely, “Constellation will REVIVE our WORLD’S ECONOMY!” (um, points for enthusiasm, at least.)

Constellation: like alcohol, it is the cause of, and solution to all of life’s problems.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Rewriting History

9 Comments

Apparently, Hollywood (and Abu Dhabi) are up to their old tricks again, demonizing and lying about the Bush administration, in a new fictional movie about the Plame affair. This is a consequence of the fact that so much Hollywood money comes from overseas, to make movies planned in advance to appeal to anti-American sensibilities. That’s one of the reasons there were so many troop-bashing and America-bashing movies about Iraq in the past few years, that bombed at the American box office.

It would be amusing to raise some money in America to do the real story, and see which does better with the audience.