Category Archives: Business

Another Green “Stimulus” Fail

Google and others want a taxpayer bail out for their desert bird roaster.

That looks like a nice bill for the new Congress to make Obama have to sign.

More at (appropriately) Powerline:

The sheer temerity of the request is almost outweighed by the unintended humor of their explanation for the failure of their project: the Sun isn’t shining as much as they thought it would. But I think they’re barking up the wrong tree: rather than ask for your money so they don’t have to use their money, they should ask the guy who said he would make the oceans recede, to order the Sun to stop slacking — rudely continuing to shine as it has for five billion years — and brighten up for Google, NRG, and Obama’s legacy.

What fools these mortals who support this insanity be.

ObamaCare

…is going back to SCOTUS.

This makes the en bank ruling in DC pointless.

I’m guessing they’ll find that the subsidies aren’t legal. The question is whether or not they’ll strike down the whole law this time, because they’re a pretty fundamental part of it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s an explainer from SCOTUSblog.

[Update a while later]

And here‘s Jonathan Adler’s take:

With this grant, the court has the opportunity to reaffirm the principle that the law is what Congress enacts, not what the administration or others wish Congress had enacted with the benefit of hindsight. Granting tax credits to those who need help purchasing health insurance may be a good idea, and may have bipartisan support, but the IRS lacks the authority to authorize such tax credits where Congress failed to do so. The PPACA only authorizes tax credits for the purchase of insurance on exchanges “established by the State.”

Yup. To grant an agency that kind of discretion would be a form of tyranny.

[Update a few minutes later]

Six potential effects of a ruling against HHS.

In Defense Of Daring

I respond to Jeffrey Kluger’s Branson bashing, over at The New Atlantis.

[Update a few minutes later]

Meghan McArdle says that of course space tourism will continue. The notion that a fatality in a flight test would destroy an industry is pretty stupid.

Also, nothing has changed in the past decade: Alex Tabarrok still doesn’t understand the difference between orbital and suborbital flight, or between flight test and operations.

Branson And Refunds

I’m sure that you’re as shocked as I am that Sir Richard’s statement on Saturday is at variance with reality. I think the technical business term for this is “fiasco.” And I’m angry that it has so tainted the industry, not to mention given the FAA an excuse to regulate, if they wish to.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The real problem is “bad business.”