Thanks to technology, we’re not going to run out of it.
Nope. “Peak oil” was always a myth. We’ll replace it with something else long before we run out, just as we did with whale oil.
Category Archives: Business
Corporate Profit Margins
The public thinks it’s 36% on average. This kind of ignorance and innumeracy is why they think we can solve our fiscal problems by “taxing the rich.”
Everyone Talks About Space Weather
…but no one does anything about it.
Well, OK, hardly anyone talks about it, either.
The Space Age
We’re still not there.
But we are (finally, no thanks to Congress) getting closer.
The Space Mess In Russia
Bob Zimmerman has some thoughts:
Overall, Rogozin’s comments suggest that there is a great deal of confusion within Putin’s government on what to do in space. On one hand he says they want to do it cheaper. On the other he says they want to build a very expensive rocket. Then with his third hand he adds that they still plan to go to the Moon, but also took out his fourth hand to note that their goal is not the Moon or Mars, but doing things cheaper.
I’m encouraged that they want to copy us in our folly of building a giant rocket. It will hold them back just as it does us.
An Unnatural Consensus
Judith Curry says we can’t understand climate without understanding the underlying natural cycle. And we don’t.
It’s insane to be making policy decisions on the basis of our current state of knowledge.
[Update a while later]
“Science journalists are not science advocates, and scientists are not science.”
Yes, scientists are not science. Corollary: There is no such thing as a "science denier." https://t.co/WCPG64bmNu
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 30, 2015
Economics 101
As long as we have prices, the government will have a budget. And reducing the interest rate on loans with a high delinquency rate compared to other loans means that we will have less money to do something else. Giving people free tuition will also mean that the government will have less money to do something else — a lot less money. Sanders tries to deal with this problem by conjuring hundreds of billions worth of imaginary tax revenue out of thin air, but alas, the actual president will have to find real money, taken from some other use. Is subsidizing the folks who are going to end up as the best-off members of society really what we would choose to use that money for?
He was told there would be no economics.
[Update a while later]
Bernie Sanders: The economics of a toddler, and the ethics of a thug.
In other words, a typical leftist.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Sort of related: A liberal professor has given up on academia.
[Wednesday-morning update]
Last link was broken, fixed now.
The New Moon Race
There’s apparently not going to be one with Russia.
Women And Gaming
Lauren Southern explains capitalism to a moron.
My theory is that the guys like the shooters because it’s like hunting, and the women like Pacman because it’s gathering. With many exceptions, of course.
The CA Methane Leak
It think it’s very misleading to call this the “worst environmental disaster since the BP oil leak.”