Posting has been light for the last week. I was on a vacation and took a blogging break. I’m back and ready to get at it again.
The Cars from 1982.
The Cars: Lets Go
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Monthly Archives: June 2011
Obama thinks too many useful tools creates too may unemployed people
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
Here is a perfect example of Obama’s reflexive view of economics:
“[T]he other thing that happened, though, and this goes to the point you were just making, is there are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM; you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
I think it would be helpful if Obama watched this video and started thinking more like VonMises, Hayek or Adam Smith.
Makes sense to me.
Going Green Without Thinking It Through: ‘Renewable’ Energy Sprawl
If you read the Volokh Conspiracy, you would’ve read about the massive amounts of land required to produce green energy yesterday:
The math is simple: to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan.
However, if you are a regular reader of motorcitytimes.com, you would’ve read about this concept one month ago:
The idea of dedicating 250 acres of land to cover with photovoltaic cells is a waste of real estate (even if it is a covered land fill). For example, Zeeland Michigan has a natural gas ‘peaker’ power plant sitting on only 30 acres and powering a community of over 800,000 people. Day or night. Rain or shine.
Just thought I would point it out.
Made In Detroit: A new way to make lighter, stronger steel
click for larger view
This is really a big deal… And it was invented in Detroit.
A Detroit entrepreneur surprised university engineers here recently, when he invented a heat-treatment that makes steel 7 percent stronger than any steel on record – in less than 10 seconds.
In fact, the steel, now trademarked as Flash Bainite, has tested stronger and more shock-absorbing than the most common titanium alloys used by industry.
The Flash Bainite process is a new way to heat treat steel in 10 seconds rather than in hours (or days) like current processes.
“Steel is what we would call a ‘mature technology.’ We’d like to think we know most everything about it,” he said. “If someone invented a way to strengthen the strongest steels even a few percent, that would be a big deal. But 7 percent? That’s huge.”
Yet, when inventor Gary Cola initially approached him, Babu didn’t know what to think.
“The process that Gary described – it shouldn’t have worked,” he said. “I didn’t believe him. So he took my students and me to Detroit.”
Cola showed them his proprietary lab setup at SFP Works, LLC., where rollers carried steel sheets through flames as hot as 1100 degrees Celsius and then into a cooling liquid bath.
Though the typical temperature and length of time for hardening varies by industry, most steels are heat-treated at around 900 degrees Celsius for a few hours. Others are heated at similar temperatures for days.
Cola’s entire process took less than 10 seconds.
He claimed that the resulting steel was 7 percent stronger than martensitic advanced high-strength steel. [Martensitic steel is so named because the internal microstructure is entirely composed of a crystal form called martensite.] Cola further claimed that his steel could be drawn – that is, thinned and lengthened – 30 percent more than martensitic steels without losing its enhanced strength.
If that were true, then Cola’s steel could enable carmakers to build frames that are up to 30 percent thinner and lighter without compromising safety. Or, it could reinforce an armored vehicle without weighing it down.
“We asked for a few samples to test, and it turned out that everything he said was true,” said Ohio State graduate student Tapasvi Lolla. “Then it was up to us to understand what was happening.”
Cola is a self-taught metallurgist, and he wanted help from Babu and his team to reveal the physics behind the process – to understand it in detail so that he could find ways to adapt it and even improve it.
This is the type of business that will create a large footprint of economic activity and many spin-offs. I would hope the political leadership in Michigan, who are endlessly prattling on about creating jobs, would clear the decks, remove all regulatory barriers and get Gary Cola processing steel in Michigan.
Sunday Morning Links: The Not So Bad Motor Scooter Edition
Getting a little nudge to do the right thing: High gas prices boosting sales of scooters
In related news:
Video: Obama faces more voter anxiety, less excitement
WWTFT: National “Common Core” Standards
CoF: Spending Cut Sham In The Making
CH2.0: Why are Your Children Still in Public School?
TheCL: Your Friend, the State
Is Atlas Shrugging? Businesses not Hiring
Gator: So, this post got me thinking
Pundette: Donaghy on Weiner
The Eye: Anthony Weiner Not Yet Roasted
China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho
Spellchek: Financial terrorism
Liberalism isn’t just going wild in Michigan: Tennessee Anti-Bullying Statute A Step Too Far
Amazing photo’s of Pearl Harbor Bombing stored in Brownie camera for 68 yrs.
Gates Blasts NATO, Questions Future of Alliance
Lastly, here is a link to some bad motor scooters (and a Montrose music vid.)
Governments don’t run up $14 trillion in debt overnight
Governments don’t run up $14 trillion in debt and tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities overnight. It takes decades to run up this kind of mind-boggling debt. It is the single biggest challenge our country is facing and there are no shortage of opinions on how to solve the problem.
One ‘economist’ who thinks he has the solution to the problem is Bruce Bartlett.
I had never heard of him before today. However, it turns out that Bartlett has been a fixture in Washington for a long time. According to his mini-bio, Bruce Bartlett has served on staffs of Congressmen Ron Paul and Jack Kemp and Senator Roger Jepsen. Also, he has served as staff director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress; senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House; and deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Long story short, he has been part of the problem. For decades.
Now that Mr. Bartlett has finished creating the mess we have today, he is now busily critiquing current GOP Presidential candidates economic plans. At least he is critiquing plans that include tax cuts.
According to Bruce Bartlett, advisor to the top levels of government in Washington during the accumulation trillions of dollars of debt, tax cuts create very little economic growth.
When Republicans talk about economic growth, they tend to talk as if there is only one factor that affects it: tax rates. Thus, last week former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, put forward an economic plan that he said would raise growth rate of the real gross domestic product to 5 percent per year from its historical level of about half that. His only specific proposal for achieving this ambitious goal was to slash tax rates on the wealthy.
Mr. Bartlett continued to complain in his article that I “could find no data or analysis of how Pawlenty’s plan would actually achieve this goal” of balancing the budget and having an economy with 5% real GDP growth. I find it bizarre that a guy who was a ‘senior policy analyst’ in the Reagan White House is unfamiliar with Art Laffer.
Our intrepid ‘economist’ continues drifting along, espousing his ideas about savings and investment. He even argues that tax increases, targeted to the cut deficit (as if the politicians in Washington will actually show restraint) can help economic growth. Bartlett uses President Reagan’s 1982 and Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase as example of tax increases that “lead to economic growth.”
This is absurd.
Obama’s Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, Thinks You Are Dumb
Obama’s Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, has put forth a new effort within the Federal Government called Plain Language.
When Federal agencies are explaining how businesses can comply with legal requirements, or informing people about Federal services and benefits, they should write clearly and avoid jargon. But far too often, agencies use confusing, technical, and acronym-filled language. Such language can cost consumers and small business owners precious time in their efforts to play by the rules.
Isn’t this nice, Obama’s regulation Czar wants to make his regulations easier for us simple, non-bureaucrats to understand. They are not cutting or removing onerous regulations, they are just making them easier for us simpletons to ‘comply.’
Here are a few examples from plain language.gov illustrating how the Federal Government is dumbing things down for us:
Before
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends a half hour or more of moderate physical activity on most days, preferably every day. The activity can include brisk walking, calisthenics, home care, gardening, moderate sports exercise, and dancing.
After
Do at least 30 minutes of exercise, like brisk walking, most days of the week.
Here is another example where the regulatory Czar removed most text and provided us with pictures. Because, as you know, a picture is worth a thousand words:
Before
This is a multipurpose passenger vehicle which will handle and maneuver differently from an ordinary passenger car, in driving conditions which may occur on streets and highways and off road. As with other vehicles of this type, if you make sharp turns or abrupt maneuvers, the vehicle may roll over or may go out of control and crash. You should read driving guidelines and instructions in the Owner’s Manual, and WEAR YOUR SEAT BELTS AT ALL TIMES.
After
I’m sure Cass Sustein was happy to see all those troublesome words removed from the warning label and replaced with the much simpler and ‘unambiguous’ graphics.
I think most people would agree, there is way to much interaction between the Federal Government and the American people.
Les Paul Music Videos
Les Paul would have been 96 years old today.
He left behind a fascinating body of recorded music and television/film performances—everything from suave jazz stylings to cornball pop whimsy. He was quite an accomplished jazz player in his prime: agile, fast and harmonically inventive. And in many ways, the marvelous gadgets he invented were an extension of his playing technique—one more way of achieving the sounds he heard in his head.
Les with his wife Mary Ford:
Crowd Source: The NYT and WaPo Go For Cheap Sarah Palin Link Bait
The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and [sic] Warren Court interpreted in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
Barack Hussein Obama, January 18, 2001
We don’t need to fundamentally transform America. We need to restore America.
Both the New York Times and WaPo are leading massive ‘crow sourcing’ effort to scour Sarah Palin’s e-mail during her term as Governor of Alaska. According to the NYT, this is an effort “to help us identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight.”
Rather than trying to look for dirt on a former Governor (and creating link bait in the process), how about looking a little closer at the long term damage being created by the current occupant of the White House.
When you are a statist, the solution to every problem is raising taxes
The IMF recommends Japan triple its sales tax to combat its massive government deficits:
The acting head of the IMF urged Japan to reduce its massive debt load to boost public confidence in the sustainability of the economy, which the global lender said could be achieved by tripling the 5 percent sales tax.
Why is it they never talk about cutting the size of government.