Boeing and Lockmart seem to be getting their money’s worth for their campaign donations to him. But while he’s clearly a tool, he’s never been the sharpest one in the shed. As Eric notes, the irony is that, prior to SpaceX, it was ULA had an actual monopoly on Air Force launches.
6 thoughts on “Ron Paul”
Comments are closed.
If this provision becomes law, SpaceX will be able to charge the government more than they could in even a quasi-competitive market. This monopoly will also stifle innovation in rocket launching technology.
And yet when they could undercut ULA by just a little, they didn’t. Landing rockets and working on a Mars transport is totally stifling technological development. Sad!
Paul also has been sympathetic to Russia in recent years, and SpaceX’s low-cost approach to launch threatens to take considerable market share away from Russian firms. For example, this year the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity has suggested the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections is a “farce” and said hostile efforts by US policymakers to sanction Russia were “irrational.”
Nice bit of yellow journolism here. Ron Paul is anti-SpaceX because he is a Russian agent? Have some balls and say it rather than just imply it. The evidence is that he thinks the Trump/Putin collusion conspiracy theory is a farce? So half the country that doesn’t believe the fact free conspiracy theory are now Russian agents?
I bet Berger and Paul had very similar views regarding Russia and their engines prior to 2016. But Paul is the nutty Russian agent.
The comments were interesting too. Apparently Paul is against the free market because he thinks ULA should be free to use Russian engines.
Paul isn’t wrong that a monopoly on launches could be bad. He is wrong that their will be a monopoly. ULA isn’t going anywhere and BO is getting into the game. The commenters don’t seem to grasp the concept of monopolies and are just cool with the potential of SpaceX being one.
Paul’s piece here shows he was a LINO when he was running for president. Libertarians have long criticized the idea that a monopoly, achieved because of advantage in efficiency and cost, should be something that the government should attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alcoa
The entire idea behind the government helping SpaceX develop their launcher was to enable more than one launch provider to exist. There are good reasons to have more than one launcher. One of those was the near monopoly status of ULA and the effects that had on launch prices and innovation.
That the government would then help other companies similar to how they helped SpaceX isn’t really an attack on SpaceX.
Libertarians have a fantastical view of things so it isn’t surprising that they would have a fantastical view of monopolies as well. Not sure the commenters over there were libertarians though. Many just came across as, “SpaceX awesome!” They are, but that doesn’t erase larger concerns.
Also note that SpaceX are innovators but just a few months ago Berger led a campaign to get them to stop innovating. Maybe if McCain comes out and saying its a good thing to not use Russian engines Berger will write a piece on how stupid it is to fear Russia.
As Paul has noted, Ron Paul isn’t really a principled libertarian; he’s a crank, on Lockmart and Boeing’s payroll.
I don’t think that Eric is a big fan of John McCain.