January 2012

Pay the Americans Now, or Pay the Russians Later

by Rand Simberg on October 20, 2011

in Politics as Usual, Space

I’m attending the International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Also attending is Alan Boyle, science correspondent for MSNBC, who just put up a piece with the same title as this post, in response to the keynote speech that NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver gave here this morning.

We are currently dependent on the Russians for lifeboat services and crew access to and from the International Space Station (we’ve actually been dependent on them for lifeboats for over a decade, since it was first permanently occupied, because Shuttle was never able to serve that role due to limited life on orbit). The latest contract costs $450 million per year (and that’s likely to go up over time, given their monopoly).

NASA’s proposed solution to this is to quickly develop multiple competitive domestic commercial providers for these services, and they requested $850 million for the 2012 budget to support this activity. The House appropriations markup was less than $300 million, and the Senate proposed $500 million. Garver said in response to a question that if they don’t get the full requested amount, it will delay the program at least a year. In other words, in order to save $350 million now, they will pay at least $450 million later (and likely more if the price has gone up by then).

Meanwhile, the same financial whizzes in the Senate insist that NASA spend two billion dollars next year on a giant rocket that will certainly not fly for several years, will not in any way address this problem, and is unneeded even for the problem that it is intended to address. In other words, business as usual in Washington.

CEI Podcast for October 20, 2011: Congress Passes Free Trade Agreements

by Ryan Young on October 20, 2011

in International, Podcast, Trade

Have a listen here.

CEI Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith, coauthor of the new CEI study “Free Trade without Apology,” talks about the recently passed free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. The agreements will lower tariffs and other trade barriers between the U.S. and the other countries, and are expected to reap billions of dollars of economic benefits. The agreements also contain a number of trade-unrelated provisions, such as labor and environmental standards. These erode our trading partners’ sovereign lawmaking power, and are best avoided in future agreements.

Protectionism is not a Constitutional Principle

by Angela Logomasini on October 20, 2011

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty

Last week, the National Beer Wholesalers Association President Craig Purser, who happens to be a former colleague of mine, had an article in The Washington Times, suggesting that the alcohol bill on Capitol Hill (H.R. 1161) serves constitutional principles. Although we haven’t chatted in years, I like Craig. He’s a super-nice guy, and he surely works hard to serve his industry. But this is one issue where we certainly disagree. I have addressed this issue on my blog at Winepolicy.com, in the Daily Caller, and in a CEI study. Today, I address it again in The Washington Times.  Check it out here.

Today’s Links: October 20, 2011

by Nicole Ciandella on October 20, 2011

in Odds & Ends

OPINION

ROBERT LAWSON: “Medical Ethics Dilemma”
“Let’s suppose it is unambiguously true that a swine flu outbreak would save net lives (or net years of life), would public health advocates support intentionally releasing the swine flu into the public? I’m serious. Public health advocates appear to have no problem using force to ‘save lives’ so why wouldn’t they support such a plan? I suspect most people’s ethical intuitions would recoil at the thought of the government releasing a potentially deadly virus only because it innoculated people from an even deadlier virus. But, but, but…we do this sort of thing all the time now. To take just one example, CAFE standards on cars have killed people merely to save a few (ok a lot) gallons of gasoline. Yet there is no uproar about this.”

ROBIN HANSON: “The Future of Cities”
“What sets city size? That is, what determines how many people all cluster together in an urban area? On the one hand, city size increases with feasible building height and with the gains to people and businesses from interacting closely with many others. On the other hand, city size decreases with how much space folks want, and with costs to transport people and goods within a city and from outlying regions. City size increases with more and cheaper nearby non-city economic activity.”

DEBORAH COHEN: “Entrepreneurial Hotbeds: A Mix of Science and Luck”
“[T]here are common underlying factors that seem to help cities such as Austin and Boulder spawn tech successes while other metro areas languish. High on the list: strong research universities to produce talent, favorable tax environments, access to transportation and at least one or two noteworthy startup stars that serve as a magnet for investors and other entrepreneurs.”

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Liberal Indifference to the Jobless in the Private Sector

by Hans Bader on October 19, 2011

in Economy, Labor, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that joblessness is not a problem in the private sector, where huge numbers of people have lost their jobs, and that it’s the public sector — where unemployment is much lower — where it is a problem.  This nonsense could only come from someone like Reid, who has been a government official for decades, and is supported by liberal government employee unions.

Reid claimed, “It’s very clear that private sector jobs have been doing just fine, it’s the public sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about.” (“Reid Says Government Jobs Must Take Priority Over Private Sector Jobs,” The Hill, 10/19/11).

Reid was defending Obama’s costly American Jobs Act proposals, which would spend billions more on state government employees, who are already much better compensated than the average American worker, and who have generous pension benefits that have resulted in trillions in unfunded pension benefits at taxpayer expense.

Contrary to Reid’s claims, 1,503,000 jobs, almost all of them in the private sector, have been lost during the Obama Administration (see figures for February, 2009 – September, 2011 (U.S. Dept. Of Labor, “Employment, Hours, And Earnings,” Accessed 10/19/11)).  The official unemployment rate is 9.1 percent, and some unofficial figures put it closer to 20 percent. (“The Unemployment Situation – September 2011,” Bureau Of Labor Statistics, 10/7/11).  By contrast, the unemployment rate for government workers is a mere 4.7%.  (See Table A-14).

(Fox News gives a slightly higher figure for lost private sector jobs, saying that “since the president’s January 2009 inauguration, total private sector employment has dropped by 1.6 million.”  Government jobs have gone down from their peak in the Obama Administration primarily because the 2010 Census came to an end.  The Census temporarily inflated the number of federal employees).

As the private sector and high-tech industries have suffered, the government has expanded.  One result is that the top average income in the U.S. is now in the Washington, D.C. Area, not California’s Silicon Valley.  “The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046. … . The unemployment rate in the Washington metro area in August was 6.1 percent, compared with 10 percent in San Jose, according to Labor Department figures.” (“Top Income In U.S. Is…Gasp!…Wash. D.C. Area,” Bloomberg, 10/19/11)

 

Shuttlyndra and the Smoking Rocket

by Rand Simberg on October 19, 2011

in Politics as Usual, Space, Tech & Telecom

Over at Pajamas Media today, I have some interesting news on the Shuttlyndra situation, which would be a huge scandal if anyone cared about space, or the waste of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars — past, present and future.

On 26 September 2011, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) issued a press release regarding fuel depots. This included a letter to former Administrator Mike Griffin who had dismissed the notion of fuel depots and commercial launch vehicles as being a viable alternative to the Space Launch System(SLS) during Congressional testimony.

Rohrabacher noted “When NASA proposed on-orbit fuel depots in this Administration’s original plan for human space exploration, they said this game-changing technology could make the difference between exploring space and falling short. Then the depots dropped out of the conversation, and NASA has yet to provide any supporting documents explaining the change,” says Rohrabacher.”

Well, despite what NASA may or may not have been telling Rep. Rohrabacher about its internal evaluations regarding the merits of alternate architectures that did not use the SLS (and those that incorporated fuel depots), the agency had actually been rather busy studying those very topics.

And guess what: the conclusions that NASA arrived at during these studies are in direct contrast to what the agency had been telling Congress, the media, and anyone else who would listen.

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Today’s Links: October 19, 2011

by Nicole Ciandella on October 19, 2011

in Odds & Ends

OPINION

JACK BARUTH: “Sign Up For E-Z Pass, Get a Free Privacy-Invading Webcam”
“It’s a common misconception that the ‘E-Z Pass’ automated tollbooth system is used to issue speeding tickets. It could be, and similar systems are used to issue tickets in the United Kingdom, but as of right now the only way to get caught speeding on most tollways is to blow by a cop with your foot to the floor and a phone glued to your ear. [...] As cash-strapped municipalities become increasingly desperate for revenue, however, it’s a fair bet that some of them will start investigating the possibilities of a nearly endless stream of automatically-generated citations.”

INVESTORS’ BUSINESS DAILY EDITORIAL: “Dems 900 Days of Irresponsibility”
“Over the weekend, Senate Democrats passed a dubious milestone — going 900 days without fulfilling their legal obligation to pass a budget. Worse is the fact that this gross dereliction of duty has gone largely unnoticed. You have to go all the way back to April 29, 2009 — just three months after President Obama took the oath of office — to find the last time Senate Democrats managed to discharge their legal obligation to produce a budget plan.”

JOHN HUNTSMAN: “Too Big to Fail is Simply Too Big”
“Is Dodd-Frank an appropriate regulatory response to the 2007 financial crisis? Tragically, no. That legislation ignores the government’s pervasive role in causing the crisis, assures future transfers from taxpayers to bankers by institutionalizing a government backstop for “too big to fail” firms, and imposes massive new regulations and unreasonable compliance costs on smaller banks. As a result, lending to small businesses from small banks suffers.”

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The Imaginary Age of Austerity

by Hans Bader on October 18, 2011 · 1 comment

in Economy, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

Like an obese person who complains that he hasn’t eaten in hours, supporters of big government complain about mythical “austerity” even when the government grows at a rapid rate.

On September 13, economist Paul Krugman claimed in his New York Times “Conscience of a Liberal” blog that “austerity programs are now the rule everywhere.” Endorsing the Occupy Wall Street protests, the liberal San Jose Mercury News claimed on October 13 that “President Obama and the Democrats have dithered as the tea party hijacked the political conversation. They acquiesced to a misdiagnosis of our core problem (too much government) and the prescription to cure it (austerity).”

This “austerity” exists only in the fantasies of  the “progressive” mind. As The Wall Street Journal notes today, federal spending is at record levels, even though “this is said to be a new age of fiscal austerity”:

The federal government recently wrapped up its biggest spending year, and its second biggest annual budget deficit . . . spending a cool $3.6 trillion. . .What happened to all of those horrifying spending cuts? Good question. CBO says that overall outlays rose 4.2% from 2010 . . . The bigger point: Government austerity is a myth.

Amazingly, the New York Times’ Krugman called Obama a “small spender.” (Obama’s unprecedentedly-large budgets have been significantly bigger than Bush’s.)

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Truck Drivers Don’t Need a Revised Hours-of-Service Rule

by Marc Scribner on October 18, 2011 · 2 comments

in Labor, Mobility, Regulation

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is poised to enact a revised hours-of-service (HOS) rule that would greatly impact commercial motor vehicle operators. The Public Citizen/Teamsters-led charge to reduce the number of hours truck drivers can legally operate combines the misguided nanny-statist philosophy of the Public Citizen Naderites — who claim to support to move due to claimed safety and health benefits — with the naked rent-seeking of the Teamsters union, which wants the government to forcibly reduce labor productivity in an effort to increase its potential membership pool due to new hires that would be necessary to perform the same amount of work.

Earlier this year, CEI filed comments in an FMCSA proceeding opposing the proposed changes. And earlier this month, I explained in an interview why the FMCSA’s proposed rule ought to be rejected on both economic and health/safety grounds:

Q: There has been talk that any meaningful change in the current HOS rule will be litigated almost immediately, effectively tying up the process for years. Should carriers and shippers feel secure that nothing will change any time soon, or should they be preparing now to make changes in their supply chains just in case?

A: This is always the trouble with shifting regulation: uncertainty. I will not try to make broad recommendations for an entire industry with a diverse composition of firms, but I would imagine that more risk-averse firms that currently find themselves on shakier financial footing should take very seriously the impact this rule will cause if it is promulgated and perhaps immediately begin investigating what adjustments to their supply chains will be needed.

Q: Have you or anyone at CEI come up with numbers to quantify the cost to the industry of the proposed changes?

A: We have not conducted an independent econometric analysis. However, using the FMCSA’s own cost-benefit estimates, minus the extremely dubious “health benefits” contained in the proposed rule’s regulatory impact analysis, the economic cost ranges from $30 million to $640 million annually, depending on the percentage of crashes that one assumes to be fatigue-caused. Of course, the burden would be disproportionately borne by small firms and owner-operators, and some have claimed the agency has grossly underestimated the costs. The discredited methodology of calculating supposed health benefits was used by the agency’s analysts primarily for the purpose of forcing a non-negative net benefits finding. They did not want to admit that this would be a costly rule for the industry.

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Today’s Links: October 18, 2011

by Nicole Ciandella on October 18, 2011

in Odds & Ends

OPINION

WILLIAM D. COHAN: “Occupy Wall Street Loves Capitalism’s Pearls”
“It’s no surprise that Occupy Wall Street’s preferred methods for getting out its message are the social-networking powerhouses Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. [...] Of course, these three companies are all backed by wealthy venture capitalists expecting to become even wealthier when these closely held businesses take advantage of the Wall Street- enabled market for initial public offerings. Did someone forget to tell Hedges et al. that Facebook is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., may have a market capitalization of about $100 billion if it goes public next year, and its co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is thought to be worth $17.5 billion largely because so many people around the world are willing to share their private musings with their friends (and with Facebook) for free?”

DOUG BANDOW: “It’s Time to Declare Peace in the War on Drugs”
“Banning drugs raises their price, creates enormous profits for criminal entrepreneurs, thrusts even casual users into an illegal marketplace, encourages heavy users to commit property crimes to acquire higher-priced drugs, leaves violence the only means for dealers to resolve disputes, forces government to spend lavishly on enforcement, corrupts public officials and institutions, and undermines a free society.  All of these effects are evident today and are reminiscent of Prohibition (of alcohol) in the early 20th Century.”

JACOB SULLUM: “Mark Bittman Corrects Fact-Resistant Food Policy Analysts . . . Such as Mark Bittman”
“I’d thank Bittman for doing a public service by refuting the persistent myth that people eschew healthy food because it’s so expensive, except that he himself was until quite recently reinforcing that very myth—a fact he does not find space to acknowledge in his 1,700-word column. Two months before he set the record straight concerning the relative price of junk food, Bittman was positively giddy about obesity maven Kelly Brownell’s proposal to discourage consumption of politically incorrect foods through taxes and encourage the consumption of politically correct foods through subsidies, calling the challenge of implementing this elaborate price control scheme ‘fun’ and ‘inspiring.’ As I noted at the time, Bittman overlooked not only the moral and practical issues raised by Brownell’s vision but the seemingly relevant fact that price is not the reason people prefer potato chips to collard greens.”

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