Disgusting Amount of Wealth Launches Mankind into Space

Recently, Sir Richard Branson has put his ridiculous wealth to a most laudable goal: space travel. His latest company, Virgin Galactic, plans to fly people into space and back again for a paltry 122,000 British pounds, or approximately $200,000. He unveiled his spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, last week.

SpaceShipTwo, the descendant of 2004's SpaceShipOne which won the X-Prize for the first private human space flight, flies to 52,000 ft (16 km) while strapped to an airplane, then releases and uses rockets to zoom out of the atmosphere to an altitude of 110km.

SpaceShipTwo can hold 2 pilots and 6 passengers, and its trajectory allows for about 6 minutes of weightlessness for those onboard before returning to Earth.

Though the flight is short, 300 passengers have already bought their tickets, while thousands more have expressed their interest.

Many of my friends on the Left seem to believe that the uber rich should be taxed at a far higher rate than your average person. While such a system may take the tax burden off of the working man, it must be weighed against the opportunity cost of lost investment. Wealthy people often make their wealth by investing wisely in things other people want, thereby using their obscene amount of money to provide for the needs and wants of their fellow man, at a small profit of course.

Branson's Virgin Galactic is a great example of how wealthy private citizens can use their ridiculous wealth to benefit mankind by pushing the boundaries of science and technology. If a person like Branson is taxed too heavily by his government, then he will not be able to make the $400 million investment needed to get a project like this off the ground, and humanity will have to wait until the government deems it feasible to take on space travel again, which considering our budget problems will not happen any time soon.

But this brings me to my next point, the point at which I must applaud our government's decision to practically starve NASA for funding. Initially, I was for increasing funding for space projects, but upon reflection I see the change I want happening before my eyes. When the government fails, the private market comes in to give people what they want. And people want space travel.

The government space program peaked in the late-60s, early-70s with the Apollo Program and the moon landings. Since then, there has been very little progress in this domain by NASA. Sure, we have the ISS, but we've stopped moving the ball forward.

While SpaceShipTwo is still early in the testing phase, SpaceShipOne stands as a proof of concept, that private entrepreneurs can and will take humanity into space, assuming they aren't taxed out of trying.

China: Bow Down To Your Lender

China is now using its role as our lender to influence the terms of our health care reform:

In a July meeting, Chinese officials asked their American counterparts detailed questions about the health care legislation making its way through Congress. The president’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, answered most of their questions. But the Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal care for all Americans.

“They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit,” one participant in the conversation recalled. Chinese officials expect that they will help finance whatever Congress and the White House settle on, mostly through buying Treasury debt, and like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.

Who would have thought health care reform could become a national security issue?

The Chinese are getting skeptical about our ability to pay them back. Perhaps they will need to teach us a lesson in capitalism, which would be ironic to the max.

Market for Education

Skilled teachers have taken to selling their lesson plans online to earn extra cash.

Kelly Gionti, a teacher at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice in Manhattan, has sold $2,544 worth of unit plans for “The Catcher in the Rye” and “The Great Gatsby,” among others, helping finance trips to Rome and Ireland, as well as class supplies.

Margaret Whisnant, a retired teacher in North Carolina, earns an average of $750 a month from lessons based on her three decades of teaching middle school classics like “The Outsiders,” enough to pay for new kitchen counters and appliances.

Lisa Michalek, 40, who taught for six years in Rochester and now works for Aventa Learning, a for-profit online education company, said she spent about five hours a week tweaking old lesson plans and creating new ones, like an earth science curriculum that sells for $59.95.

“I knew I had good lessons, so I thought, ‘Why not see what other people think of it?’ ” Ms. Michalek said.

After $31,000 in sales, she has her answer.

It's impressive, even in a completely government run enterprise, that a free market can still pop up to improve lives.

Even though this practice is win-win, school officials look upon it with disdain.

A high school English teacher in upstate New York said her bosses barred her from selling plans used in her classroom; she spoke on the condition that she not be named.

Beyond the unresolved legal questions, there are philosophical ones. Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, said the online selling cheapens what teachers do and undermines efforts to build sites where educators freely exchange ideas and lesson plans.

“Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that’s a great thing,” he said. “But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession.”

Apparently making money in exchange for quality work is "destructive." And here I thought it was a good thing that good teachers were making extra money, other teachers had access to high quality lesson plans, and kids were learning more.

Shows what I know.

[NYTimes via StormD]

Five Dollar Economics

It is standard liberal dogma to believe that capitalists are greedy pigs who will squeeze consumers for every last cent just to make a profit. While some may be, the smarter ones know better.

Stuart Frankel is one of those smarter capitalists, and to boost sales at his Subway store in Miami he decided to give his customers a deal: a footlong sub for $5.

For Frankel, the biggest surprise from his $5 promotion was that his profit margins didn't decline. Many promotions are so-called loss leaders designed to draw customers in the hope they'll buy higher-margin items alongside the featured special. That's one reason most offers have a time limit. Frankel's food costs did rise as a percentage of sales, but that was offset by the overall boost in volume and the increased productivity of his employees, who had less down time. Even after adding two new staffers, Frankel made money on each $5 sandwich.

The free market responds to good deals, and rewards those who give them. Walmart is another great example of a business that exists to give people low prices, and they are now the largest retailer in America. Watch how fast Walmart spreads.

There is tremendous profit in saving consumers money. Markets must be kept as free as possible to allow this phenomenon to continue.

Communism vs. Capitalism

Experiment over.

[via Glasperlenspieler]

There is Something Wrong with the Airline Industry: UPDATE

As an innovative move, United Airlines will boost revenue by doing away with seats completely and instead stack them like cordwood.

"Research shows that we lose millions of dollars each month by having them all sit upright in individual seats for the duration of the flight," said CEO Glenn F. Tilton, speaking to reporters at United Airlines' corporate headquarters. "However, if we were to remove these seats, we could just sort of stack them all in there, one by one, as they file into the plane."

"If a 747's maximum takeoff weight is 875,000 pounds, then we should be packing that plane with 875,000 pounds," Tilton added.

According to a press release, the company estimates that the new policy of simply arranging them in a towering mound will allow it to sell approximately 20 times more tickets per flight. In addition, executives claimed they would be able to eliminate the unnecessary cost of in-flight magazines, chairs, seat belts, blankets, bathrooms, headphones, and oxygen masks.

Haha, another good story from the Onion. Except The New York Times carried this story in April 24, 2006:

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none has agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to seating experts who have seen a proposal.

That the airlines are even considering such things is the result of several factors. High fuel costs are making it difficult for carriers to turn a profit. The new seat technology not only allows airlines to add more places for passengers, it also reduces a seat's weight by up to 15 pounds, or 7 kilograms, limiting fuel consumption. A typical seat in economy class now weighs 74 to 82 pounds.

I feel comfortable in the fact that Americans are far too lazy to put up with standing room only airplanes. [Times story via Nergol]

There is Something Wrong with the Airline Industry

For anyone who has dealt with an airline before, this will come as no surprise.

My brother just dealt with an airline, and afterwards he sent me this email:

I recently booked a flight for a med school interview in New York, but I needed to cancel it.

Airline Operator: The ticket you wish to cancel is a non-refundable ticket, but you will receive an airline credit for the full ticket price of $89.60

Me: Oh...that sucks...but does the credit ever expire?
Operator: No, but when you choose to redeem the credit, you will be charged a re-booking fee of $150

Me: Wait, wait, wait...you're telling me that I can either forfeit the $89.60 completely, OR I can pay $239.60 and get ONLY $89.60 worth of value from it - is that correct?

Operator: umm... yes that sounds about right

Me: So I get to choose between the two STELLAR choices of letting the airline steal $90 from me, OR let the airline steal $150 from me? This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!

Operator: Sir, I apologize, but this is airline policy

Me: You know where you can shove that policy, don't you?

Operator: Yes sir, I do.

Me: Just so we're clear on that.

Luckily we have companies like Southwest putting pressure on the more expensive carriers, but this is just awful.

Google's Quest To Conquer the World

Step 1:  Make a Map.

Today, as soon as Google showed off its beta GPS navigator, the stocks of Garmin, TomTom and other companies in that industry fell into the toilet. It's hard to compete with free Google apps, but that's not why they're screwed...

TomTom owns Tele Atlas, who drives the roads of the world in order to make maps, and until recently was a major map provider for Google. Nokia owns the only major competitor, Navteq, who has also provided maps for Google. Look at Google Maps now, though, and you'll see that the entire US bears just one single copyright: Google's.

Street View wasn't just a neat way to get imagery to accompany the data already found in Google Maps. As it happens, it was a way to drive the same roads that were already in Google Maps, tracing them with Google's own road teams, and—through efficiency and brute force—do away with those costly map licenses. Google has mapped the US, and will surely map the rest of the world soon enough.

This is just a timely example of Google's monstrous growth, and the destruction it causes. Any business that trades in data or packages it for public consumption may one day face the same issues. It's not just whether or not to compete with the behemoth, but even whether or not to go into business with it. In either case, there is a chance of being destroyed.

Google entering a business is a good signal that it's time to pack it up and leave, or pray you get bought. As Google continues to conquer every facet of our lives. This blog is even served by Google.

I, for one, welcome our new nerdy overlords.

How the NFL is Changing Television

Despite my deep love of the NFL, I also know it is a money grubbing machine. However their greed, as it so often does, is leading them to innovate.

Their new service "NFL Game Rewind" allows fans like myself to watch every game from this season and last online, without commercials. The only limit is that you can't watch games live, and the system is off while live NFL games are being played. Other than that, it's the equivalent of having every game from this season and last on DVD.

All this, and the cost to me was a paltry $25. I believe this was a reduced, midseason rate, but regardless it is well worth it to a fan like myself.

As more and more media make the shift to the Internet I hope we see more innovation like we see in the NFL. I imagine they would stream games live, too, if they weren't hampered by their contracts with the major networks.

Cable companies fiercely resist customer demand to buy shows or channels ala carte, but the Internet may allow us to circumvent them completely.

All because greedy companies like the NFL want to make a few extra dollars.

Our Business is Capitalism

And buddy, business is booming:

The World Bank’s annual Doing Business report indicates that capitalism has fared better than feared in the recession. For the year ending in May 2009, 131 countries introduced 287 reforms, more than in any year since the survey began in 2004. Rwanda led the way, followed by other low and lower-middle-income countries. Research has shown that pro-business reforms are particularly beneficial in developing countries. The Economist notes that, “One study shows that, in poor countries, a ten-day reduction in the time it takes to start a business can lead to an increase of 0.4 percentage points in GDP growth.”

'Nuff said.