Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Health Care Reform

9 Comments

…versus universal health care. Some thoughts from (MD) Paul Hsieh:

According to a recent CNN poll, 8 out of 10 Americans are generally happy with their current health care. But they are legitimately concerned about rising costs. Furthermore, the constant media drumbeat about our health care “crisis” is making most Americans think that everybody else is having a rough time with health care (even if they themselves are doing relatively well). This fuels the false perception that we need drastic change in the form of government-managed “universal health care.” In fact, the opposite is true. If Americans are satisfied with their health care quality but unhappy with rising costs, then the proper course is free-market reforms that lower costs, preserve quality, and respect individual rights.

Americans have already been burned by the congressional rush to pass the “stimulus” bill, which many legislators now acknowledge that they didn’t even read before voting for. Congress should not make the same mistake by rushing to pass “universal health care” legislation. Instead, Congress should slow down, take a deep breath, and engage in a full, honest discussion about the kinds of genuine reforms we need to actually correct our current problems.

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Real Cultural War

38 Comments

It’s about free markets versus fascist corporatism.

[Update early afternoon]

Sorry, but yes, it is fascism. Which is not identically equal to Nazism.

[Update a few minutes later]

So much for the rule of law:

As much as anyone, we want to see Chrysler emerge from its current situation as a viable American company, and we are committed to doing what we can to help. Indeed, we have made significant concessions toward this end – although we have been systematically precluded from engaging in direct discussions or negotiations with the government; instead, we have been forced to communicate through an obviously conflicted intermediary: a group of banks that have received billions of TARP funds.

What created this much-publicized impasse? Under long recognized legal and business principles, junior creditors are ordinarily not entitled to anything until senior secured creditors like our investors are repaid in full. Nevertheless, to facilitate Chrysler’s rehabilitation, we offered to take a 40% haircut even though some groups lower down in the legal priority chain in Chrysler debt were being given recoveries of up to 50% or more and being allowed to take out billions of dollars. In contrast, over at General Motors, senior secured lenders are being left unimpaired with 100% recoveries, while even GM’s unsecured bondholders are receiving a far better recovery than we are as Chrysler’s first lien secured lenders.

Our offer has been flatly rejected or ignored. The fact is, in this process and in its earnest effort to ensure the survival of Chrysler and the well being of the company’s employees, the government has risked overturning the rule of law and practices that have governed our world-leading bankruptcy code for decades.

Hey, there are omelettes to make.

Business, Economics, Technology and Society

Airline Seats

15 Comments

Why are they so miserable?

I found this interesting:

Brauer, a former Air Force officer and mechanical engineer, still has a lot to do with our in-flight comfort. He’s been researching it almost since he started at Boeing in 1979 and consults with airlines on how seat configurations balance comfort against the bottom line. His calculations largely led to the 777’s shift to three rows of three, from the “2-5-2” configuration, which allows everyone to have a free seat next to them when the plane is 67 percent full (versus 44 percent).

I’ve kvetched about this before, I’m sure [Googling…yup, here it is, in comments), but a big reason that I don’t like wide bodies is that the window/seat ratio is much lower on them, and I’m a window man. But at least with the 3-3-3, I can get a window and still have a decent chance of an empty seat next to me. That would almost never happen with a 2-5-2. I don’t know why this should have required a calculation, though. It seems pretty intuitively obvious that 3-3-3 is superior, just because a row of three seems preferable to a row of five. It puts everyone closer to an aisle, other than windowers.

Or does it? Maybe a calculation is required…

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

More Candidates For Tea Parties

17 Comments

GM bondholders:

This is what happens when the government picks winners and losers: big unions walk away with GM and small investors get thrown by the wayside. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to return to some kind of normal economic activity, and when that happens we will need investors, large and small, to feel it’s worthwhile getting back into the market. Deals like this one are going to make that awfully difficult.

People are reeling from having their 401ks wiped out in the current market slide. And now those who had for years bought what they thought were “safe” blue-chip corporate bonds are discovering they were only safe until they were told by the government to go fly a kite because government wants to pay off the unions instead. That is deeply unfair to small bondholders, and it’s dreadful economic policy. As a friend of mine put it to me, “Who in their right mind will buy corporate bonds now? And if nobody’s buying bonds, how exactly are our debt markets going to get humming again? What a mess.”

It’s almost like they want to wreck the economy.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Apparently, Ken Lewis, head of B of A, has been fired.

The question is, who did it? The shareholders and board (you know, the old-fashioned way), or was it our new head of the economy continuing to grab more power?

[Update]

Apparently it was the board. And he’s still CEO, just not chairman.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

GM Thoughts

5 Comments

From Mitt Romney:

GM’s new proposal, clearly produced under government duress, is worse than virtually any of the alternatives. It would give GM to the UAW and the U.S. government and make taxpayers pick up the bills. Of course, billions more from government would be drawn down right away. But the UAW could also depend on the Obama administration to keep up the subsidy for years and years to come. Government and Union co-ownership: It would be as ineffective as it is un-American.

The right course for GM is an out-of-court restructuring or bankruptcy. Either would keep the company in business and rid it of burdensome costs, work rules and obligations. The government could backstop the post-restructuring debt, helping the company get on its feet. GM must not fail: If its costs are brought in line with its competition, it can ultimately thrive and grow jobs. What is proposed is even worse than bankruptcy—it would make GM the living dead.

I was never a big Romney fan, but he’s looking pretty damned good right now.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

One Hundred Days

10 Comments

One hundred screwups. And here’s a pretty serious one:

The feds will ask the banks to increase their tangible equity by converting preferred shares to common stock, including the taxpayers’ preferred shares that were purchased with TARP funds. The WSJ editorial board called this a “backdoor nationalization.” That’s exactly what it is. It’s also a nationalization that increases taxpayer exposure to bank losses without recapitalizing the banks, without providing an exit strategy, and without building in effective safeguards against politically directed lending.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“Card Check”

2 Comments

In action:

Milner says the men demanded that he erase his recording, and one of them took his camera, while Cerbo claims, in the Post’s words, that he “offered to erase his tape because he hadn’t been invited to the event.” No one disputes that Milner was outnumbered, or that it was he who called 911.

If this is what happens to a man at a public event, what do you expect a woman to do when these guys show up at her house with a card to sign?

I’ll be curious to see whether Benedict Arlen flips on this issue.

Business, Space

The Suborbital Space Race

1 Comment

Doug Messier has an analysis of the differences between Virgin Galactic and XCOR’s approach to commercial human spaceflight. A couple nits:

A year after the accident, Scaled brought in SpaceDev to assist with the engine development. The Powoy, Calif.-based company had built the propulsion system for SpaceShipOne, but Scaled subsequently decided to bring the engine development in-house. Bringing back SpaceDev was a tacit admission that this decision had not been a wise one.

It’s not quite that simple. There is some dispute as to who the actual engine provider for SS1 was, and SpaceDev certainly didn’t do it on its own. And one reason that they didn’t get the follow-on work was a rumored falling out between Burt Rutan and Jim Benson, founder and then-head of SpaceDev. In addition to the accident, I would assume that one of the reasons that SpaceDev and Scaled are working together again is a result of Jim’s departure from the company almost three years ago (subsequentprior to his recent death).

Also,

XCOR’s gradual approach – flying a small vehicle commercially, then building something larger – is what Scaled Composites might have done absent the involvement of Virgin Galactic. Branson’s company brought the customer experience to the forefront, which led to the development of a much larger – and more complicated – space plane.

It’s not at all clear what Scaled would have done (if anything) absent Virgin’s involvement. It’s unlikely they would have operated the vehicle on their own — that’s not the business they’re in, and they wouldn’t have developed it any further with their own money, because that’s not what they do. They build airplanes to other people’s specifications. Perhaps if Branson hadn’t stepped forward, Paul Allen might have started a passenger business, but we’ll never know now.