Capitalism Review

Hansen: Edward Baptist’s ‘New History of Capitalism’ is Fundamentally Fiction

Jun 27, 2020 | Culture

In The Back of Ed Baptist's Envelope, Professor Bradley A. Hansen after explaining why Baptist's approach of "double counting" The Half Has Never Been Told, is "fundamentally flawed," he goes on to point out "an even greater problem" with Baptist's "back of the envelope accounting."Writes Hansen:

perhaps $40 millionprobably added up to about $100 millionmight have added up to $200 millionBaptist is simply pulling numbers out of thin air, or a hat, or wherever it is that he gets them. Back of the envelope calculations tend to involve simplifying assumptions. Baptist seems to understand the term to mean that he can just make things up. The only reference provided is to Table 4.1. Table 4.1 does not provide, as one might assume, information about shipping and insurance. It does not even have any information at all for the year 1836.Both historians and authors of fiction tell stories, but the stories that historians tell are distinguished from fiction by their grounding in the sources. Historians are constrained to tell stories that they can support with evidence from their sources. Baptist has thrown off this constraint and set himself free to simply make up numbers (or events). This really is a new history of capitalism.

Also recommended:

A Description of the Problems with Edward Baptist's "The Half Has Never Been Told" for Non-Economists by Bradley A. Hansen "There are other problems in the book, but, in my opinion, none are as fundamental as the inability to rely upon the author to accurately represent either the primary or secondary sources."
Why the History of Capitalism Subfield Got Slavery (and Almost Everything Else) so Terribly Wrong by Robin E. Wright This article summarizes the argument of Wright's 2017 book, The Poverty of Slavery: How Unfree Labor Pollutes the Economy, which critiques the work of “historians of capitalism,” especially Ed Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told. It then explains how those historians were able to convince themselves, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that slavery and other forms of unfreedom can spark economic growth and development. It concludes by suggesting that governments should continue to ban even so-called “voluntary slavery” because they cannot effectively enforce labor contracts.

Romer: The FDA’s Massive Damage To People’s Health and Wealth

Jun 26, 2020 | Politics

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer provides "a recap with links about how the FDA responded to just a couple of issues since the start of the pandemic."Writes Romer:

It might be time to review the massive damage that the FDA is doing by restricting the supply and use of tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.Massive? With enough tests, the US could have avoided the enormous cost that this virus is imposing – at least 200,000 excess deaths and $8 trillion in lost output.[...]Many accounts have noted how the failure of the virus test developed by the CDC delayed the US response to the virus. The fact that has not gotten as much attention is that although the FDA promptly approved the broken test from the CDC, it took an excruciatingly long time to approve tests that actually worked.

Read The FDA's Perpetual Process Machine. Related articles:

Muhammad Ali Jr: Dad Would Have Hated ‘Racist’ Black Lives Matter

Jun 25, 2020 | Politics

From "Muhammad Ali’s son says dad would have hated ‘racist’ Black Lives Matter" (NY Post):

On the fourth anniversary of his death, Muhammad Ali’s only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement “racist” and the protesters “devils.”The legendary boxer and activist stood up against racism throughout his life, but Muhammad Ali Jr. says his dad would have been sickened by how the protests have turned to violence and looting after the death of George Floyd.“Don’t bust up s–t, don’t trash the place,” he told The Post. “You can peacefully protest.‘‘My father would have said, ‘They ain’t nothing but devils.’ My father said, ‘All lives matter.’ I don’t think he’d agree.”Of the BLM movement, Ali Jr., a Muslim like his father, said: “I think it’s racist.”“It’s not just black lives matter, white lives matter, Chinese lives matter, all lives matter, everybody’s life matters. God loves everyone — he never singled anyone out. Killing is wrong no matter who it is,” Ali said during an hour-long interview with The Post.[...]Ali goes a step further, calling out Black Lives Matter as a divisive movement.“It’s a racial statement,” he said. “It’s pitting black people against everyone else. It starts racial things to happen; I hate that.”

Pluckrose and Lindsay: Critical Race Theory Unmasked

Jun 25, 2020 | Culture

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT)?

From Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 2nd Edition:

"The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law."

From Sherwood Thompson, Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice:

"Critical race theory (CRT) is a scholarly and political approach to examining race that leads to a consequential analysis and profound understanding of racism. It argues, as a starting point, that the axis of American social life is fundamentally constructed in race. As a result, the economic, political, and historical relationships and arrangements that social actors have to institutions and social processes are all race based. CRT also argues that, as a whole, this idea has been purposefully ignored, subdued, and marginalized in both the dominant and public discourse and that there are serious repercussions that arise from this structural blindness…. One of the important tenets of CRT is the assertion that race is socially constructed, yet it denotes explicitly and implicitly how power is used and appropriated in society. "

From Payne Hiraldo, The Role of Critical Race Theory in Higher Education:

"CRT’s framework is comprised of the following five tenets: counter-storytelling; the permanence of racism; Whiteness as property; interest conversion; and the critique of liberalism."

From Cummings, André Douglas Pond. “A Furious Kinship: Critical Race Theory and the Hip-Hop Nation,” in Delgado, Richard and Stefancic, Jean (eds). Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge:

"CRT rests on several foundational pillars:First, racism is a relentless daily fact of life in American society, and the ideology of racism and white supremacy are ingrained in the political and legal structures so as to be nearly unrecognizable. Racism is a constant, not aberrant, occurrence in American society. “Because racism is an ingrained feature of our landscape, it appears ordinary and natural to persons in the culture.”Second, “as a form of oppositional scholarship, CRT challenges the experience of White European Americans as the normative standard” against which societal norms are measured. “CRT grounds its conceptual framework in the distinctive . . . experiences of people of color and racial oppression through the use of literary narrative knowledge and storytelling to challenge the existing social construction of race.”Third, CRT questions liberalism and the ability of a system of law built on it to create a just society. An interest convergence critique posits that white elites will tolerate or encourage racial advances for blacks only when such advances also promote white self-interest.Fourth, CRT seeks to expose the flaws in the color-blind view of everyday social relations and the administration of law by positing that ending discrimination and racism through legal means has not occurred because of the contradiction between a professed belief in equality and justice and a societal willingness to tolerate and accept racial inequality and inequity."

Why Should You Care?

Racism posing as "anti-racism."
Accusations of "racism" for intellectual disagreeing with someone.
Guilty of "white fragility" for denying the racism that you do not have.
"White Silence" is violence.
"Violence" is freedom of speech; which will be attacked by real violence.
Accusations of "white privilege" for being successful.
Riots, looting, and anarchy under the flag of "Black Lives Matter."

Welcome to the poisonous fruits of CRT -- one of the many children of the "philosophy" of Postmodernism -- the nihilistic philosophy of the anti-Enlightenment.Proof of the power of ideas can be seen in an "obscure branch of academic thought called Critical Race Theory" writes Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay:

These ideas originated in the academic literature in the 1980s and 1990s and, until quite recently, seemed to have little impact. Helen Pluckrose and James LindsayThese (mostly bad) ideas have been mainstreaming over the last decade and especially over the last few months, as they are much of the theoretical underpinning of the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

The two have put together "A Beginner’s Curriculum on Critical Race Theory" on their website New Discourses.

Ghate: A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease

Jun 23, 2020 | Philosophy, Politics

“A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease: Planning for the Next Pandemic” is the Ayn Rand Institute’s white paper on America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, authored by the Institute’s chief philosophy officer, Onkar Ghate. You can read it online or download a PDF.Some key points made by Ghate include:

We must not commit the error of assuming the only form of effective action is coercive, governmental action. That assumption is un-American: it is prejudiced against freedom.
Instead of admitting that their lockdowns were panicked reactions to months of inaction, our elected officials continued to order us around as though the economy and the entire country were the government’s property.
In a free society the government’s public health goal is and must be different from minimizing at all costs the number of deaths from an infectious disease.
America is the land of self-responsibility. We each must think how health is best achieved and disease best avoided in our individual circumstances.
There is no such thing as “our” health or “our” wealth. There is only the specific health and wealth — the specific lives and livelihoods — of separate individuals. To ask government to “balance” these two is a euphemism for asking it to decide who will be sacrificed to whom.
“Flatten the curve” graphs assume that the supply of healthcare is projected to remain stagnant. Why? If providers could profit from meeting the increase in demand, no one would think of healthcare capacity as a flat line.
Government-controlled healthcare means rationed healthcare. It is our government’s responsibility to explain clearly how healthcare will be rationed in a pandemic.
We must have the freedom to think and act for ourselves. If the law focuses government on the task of testing, isolating and tracking carriers and removes government’s power to order statewide lockdowns, we will have that freedom.
Government must specify when an infectious disease rises to a level severe enough to warrant coercive intervention. And when the threat from an infectious disease is severe enough, government must act to end the threat posed by carriers.
Government’s powers must be highly circumscribed. It certainly should not possess anything resembling the power to order coercive statewide lockdowns. The guiding principle is that when government lacks specific evidence about a threat, it cannot act.
Most people will take voluntary countermeasures if they are given reason to do so.
Had the government been forced to adopt a more surgical approach because the use of the blunt instrument of statewide lockdowns was prohibited, its actions would have been both less destructive and more effective.
What we need and what is realistically achievable is an approach to infectious disease that codifies into law the best aspects of what Taiwan, South Korea and Sweden have implemented.
Voluntary countermeasures, not coercive statewide lockdowns, are what the 2017 CDC guidelines for an influenza pandemic as severe as that of 1918 recommend.
Vital to South Korea’s success is that it appreciates the need to test widely but does not assume this means government must control all aspects of testing.
Only when we have codified into law the government’s goal — to neutralize active carriers of sufficiently threatening diseases — and its delimited powers — to test, isolate and track — will we get an American response to an infectious disease pandemic.
The government of a free society has the responsibility to monitor the threat from infectious diseases, to be actively on the lookout for new ones like Ebola or Zika or COVID-19.
The basic issue is to define when coercive action against the carrier of an infectious disease is warranted because the threat he poses to others is severe enough.

He concludes with the following:

On the positive side, we need the law to focus government with laser-like precision on its proper goal: to remove the active threat posed by carriers of severe infectious diseases.
Second, on the negative side, the law must strip federal and state governments of the power to lock down entire states or even just cities in the name of public health.
What we need and what is realistically achievable is an approach to infectious disease that codifies into law the best aspects of what Taiwan, South Korea, and Sweden have implemented.
Write to your representatives in state and federal governments. And then keep contacting your representatives until they make the necessary legislative changes.

“A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease: Planning for the Next Pandemic” is a must-read.

***

Benjamin Bayer has a summary "We can maintain a free society while effectively addressing pandemic" published in the OC Register.

BLM Founder Admits They are Trained Marxists

Jun 23, 2020 | Politics

BLM Inc. co-founder Patrisse Cullors states that she and co-founder are "trained Marxists."“We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular, we’re trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories.” -- Patrisse Cullors"We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth... We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us." -- Lenin

Burke: Robin DiAngelo’s ‘White Fragility’ is an Intellectual Fraud

Jun 17, 2020 | Politics

David E. Burke's essay The Intellectual Fraud of Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility”, exposes the intellectual fraud in Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility.Burke summarizes DeAngelo's argument as follows:

First, DiAngelo argues that white people are inescapably racist, writing, “All white people are invested in and collude with racism,” and that “The white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: that we are capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains come through the subjugation of others.”
Second, DiAngelo argues that any white person who does not admit to their own racism is blinded by their “white fragility.” In DiAngelo’s words, because white people are, “Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race.” This fragility purportedly explains why, “people who identify as white are so difficult in conversations regarding race.”

According to Burke, "White Fragility is religion masquerading as knowledge. [...] It’s an unprovable and unfalsifiable theory, deceptively framed to convince readers of their own guilt," and that the entire "theory of White Fragility is unfalsifiable. It is impossible for someone to prove that they are not fragile, just as it is impossible for someone to prove they are not possessed by a demon."Read the full article here.

Sam Harris: Making Sense of George Floyd Riots

Jun 14, 2020 | Politics

This is a thoughtful podcast on the complex issue of police violence, the George Floyd protests (and riots), black lives matter, racism, and crime by whites and blacks. Though I disagree with on some points he demonstrates the method of finding a solution: reason.

Heroic African Immigrant Calls Out BLM

Jun 4, 2020 | Politics

This is mind-opening.White "progressive" woman tells a black African immigrant to "go" because she intellectually disagrees with her.The condescension of "progressives" to independent thinking "people of color" is astounding.https://youtu.be/ItopNgRQiuY

Journo: The Curious Attacks on Bill Gates

Jun 2, 2020 | Politics

If you’ve been puzzled by the widespread attacks on Bill Gates lately, you may want to check out Elan Journo's new article, which starts this way:

In a widely viewed 2015 TED talk, Bill Gates warned of the risk of a global pandemic for which we were unprepared. Now that we’re actually in the midst of a global pandemic for which we are woefully unprepared, Gates has spoken out against the US government’s inadequate response, and his philanthropic foundation has pledged $250 million to help with the manufacture of promising vaccines for the novel coronavirus.For his foresight and willingness to help combat the pandemic, Gates deserves admiration. Instead he faces suspicion, attacks and vilification. Why?

Read the full article at Areo magazine.

Black Lives Matter Cofounder Calls to Defund The Police

Jun 2, 2020 | Education, Politics

From Variety:

In tandem with Blackout Tuesday, the collective Movement 4 Black Lives, a coalition of more than 100 black-rights organizations, is launching a “five days of action” in an effort to fight systemic racism.Part of the effort is an “open demand” letter signed by Lizzo, John Legend, Taraji P. Henson, Natalie Portman, Jane Fonda, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, and more that aims calls for a stop to increases on police budgets and to increase spending on health care, education, and programs for black communities. ["Black Lives Matter Cofounder Patrisse Cullors on Blackout Tuesday and How the Music Community Can Help", 2 June 2020]

Here is the full open letter:

Black People Are Dying of Police Terror and Covid19. It is time to defund the police NOW
Black communities across the nation are mourning the deaths of George Floyd, tortured to death by Minneapolis police, Ahmaud Arbery, a jogger who was killed while running in a residential neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia, Breonna Taylor an EMT killed while asleep in her bed in Louisville,KY, Dreasjon Reed in Indianapolis and Tony McDade in Tallahassee. Their names are added to a devastatingly long list of Black people who have been killed at the hands of vigilantes or law enforcement. Not to mention the others whose names we don’t yet know, and may never know since they were killed without a camera recording it.At the same time, the United States leads the world in COVID-19 cases. So far, more than 100,000 people -- enough to fill a football stadium-- have perished from the virus, with over one million cases confirmed, and those numbers don’t reflect all the people dying from virus-related illnesses. Black people are suffering disproportionately from COVID-19, four times more likely to die than their white neighbors.It is important to state this within the context of the scourge of anti-Black police terror and the resulting uprisings taking place across the U.S. The COVID-19 deaths and the deaths caused by police terror are connected and consequential to each other. The United States does not have a national healthcare system. Instead, we have the largest military budget in the world, and some of the most well-funded and militarized police departments in the world, too. Policing and militarization overwhelmingly dominate the bulk of national and local budgets. In fact, police and military funding has increased every single year since 1973, and at the same time, funding for public health decreased every year, crystallized most recently when the Trump administration eliminated the US Pandemic Response Team in 2018, citing “costs”.The time has come to defund the police.Black communities are living in persistent fear of being killed by state authorities like police, immigration agents or even white vigilantes who are emboldened by state actors. According to the Urban Institute, in 1977, state and local governments spent $60 billion on police and corrections. In 2017, they spent $194 billion. A 220 percent increase. Despite continued profiling, harassment, terror and killing of Black communities, local and federal decision-makers continue to invest in the police, which leaves Black people vulnerable and our communities no safer.Where could that money go? It could go towards building healthy communities, to the health of our elders and children, to neighborhood infrastructure, to education, to childcare, to support a vibrant Black future. The possibilities are endless.We join in solidarity with the freedom fighters in Minneapolis, Louisville, and across the United States. And we call for the end to police terror.We call for defunding of police and for those dollars to be rerouted to create a public national healthcare system.Join us in demanding your local officials take the pledge to:Vote no on all increases to police budgets Vote yes to decrease police spending and budgets Vote yes to increase spending on Health care, Education, and Community programs that keep us safe.

George Flloyd was not killed because the federal government has not nationalized health care, like it has most of education, infrastructure, etc.He was killed because a thug wearing a police uniform was empowered by law to kill an innocent man.

No mention in her letter is made that approximately 90% of black people in America are not killed by white police (the amount is around 1%), but 90% of blacks are killed by other blacks, and that police are those Blacks only form of protection. Apparently, those black lives don't matter.

No mention is made to reform the police -- and that being a police officer is a noble endeavor, and that most police officers are good people trying to do their jobNo mention is made of ending qualified immunity -- where a government official is not personally held responsible for their actions.No mention is made to work with the police to reform them.No condemnation of the blacks -- and whites -- and their communities, harmed by riots and looting -- and how disarming the good policeman leaves them at the mercy of murderers, rapists, and thugs.The real terror is the destruction that the "no justice, no peace" mob has created.

Violence In The Streets and The Death of George Floyd

Jun 2, 2020 | Politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWPqQIxfYsAn enlightening discussion between professors Ben Bayer, Greg Salmieri, and Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute on the violence in the streets across America and the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota by a policeman.

“Let’s Light This Candle”

May 31, 2020 | Culture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIZsnKGV8TE

NASA Sends Astronauts Into Space on Systems Owned, Built, Tested and Operated by Private Companies

From SpaceX:

On Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon’s second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft returned human spaceflight to the United States. Crew Dragon will autonomously dock to the International Space Station at about 10:30 a.m. EDT on Sunday, May 31.[...]

Demo-2 is the final major test for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX is returning human spaceflight to the United States with one of the safest, most advanced systems ever built, and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is a turning point for America’s future in space exploration that lays the groundwork for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

From NASA:

For the first time in history, NASA astronauts have launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.“Today a new era in human spaceflight begins as we once again launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil on their way to the International Space Station, our national lab orbiting Earth,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “I thank and congratulate Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley, and the SpaceX and NASA teams for this significant achievement for the United States. The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the Moon and Mars.”Known as NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2, the mission is an end-to-end test flight to validate the SpaceX crew transportation system, including launch, in-orbit, docking and landing operations. This is SpaceX’s second spaceflight test of its Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts aboard, which will pave the way for its certification for regular crew flights to the station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program."This is a dream come true for me and everyone at SpaceX,” said Elon Musk, chief engineer at SpaceX. “It is the culmination of an incredible amount of work by the SpaceX team, by NASA and by a number of other partners in the process of making this happen. You can look at this as the results of a hundred thousand people roughly when you add up all the suppliers and everyone working incredibly hard to make this day happen.”The program demonstrates NASA’s commitment to investing in commercial companies through public-private partnerships and builds on the success of American companies, including SpaceX, already delivering cargo to the space station.“It’s difficult to put into words how proud I am of the people who got us here today,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager. “When I think about all of the challenges overcome – from design and testing, to paper reviews, to working from home during a pandemic and balancing family demands with this critical mission – I am simply amazed at what the NASA and SpaceX teams have accomplished together. This is just the beginning; I will be watching with great anticipation as Bob and Doug get ready to dock to the space station tomorrow, and through every phase of this historic mission.”SpaceX controlled the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Control Center Firing Room 4, the former space shuttle control room, which SpaceX has leased as its primary launch control center. As Crew Dragon ascended into space, SpaceX commanded the spacecraft from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA teams are monitoring space station operations throughout the flight from Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the space station at 10:29 a.m. Sunday, May 31. NASA Television and the agency’s website are providing ongoing live coverage of the Crew Dragon’s trip to the orbiting laboratory. Behnken and Hurley will work with SpaceX mission control to verify the spacecraft is performing as intended by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system, and by maneuvering the thrusters, among other things. The first docking maneuver began Saturday, May 30, at 4:09 p.m., and the spacecraft will begin its close approach to the station at about 8:27 a.m. Sunday, May 31. Crew Dragon is designed to dock autonomously, but the crews onboard the spacecraft and the space station will diligently monitor the performance of the spacecraft as it approaches and docks to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module.After successfully docking, the crew will be welcomed aboard the International Space Station, where they will become members of the Expedition 63 crew, which currently includes NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. NASA will continue live coverage through hatch opening and the crew welcoming ceremony. The crew will perform tests on Crew Dragon in addition to conducting research and other tasks with the space station crew.Three astronauts aboard the International Space Station will participate in a live NASA Television crew news conference from orbit on Monday, June 1, beginning at 11:15 a.m. on NASA TV and the agency’s website.Demo-2 AstronautsBehnken is the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the space station. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000 and has completed two space shuttle flights. Behnken flew STS-123 in March 2008 and STS-130 in February 2010, performing three spacewalks during each mission. Born in St. Anne, Missouri, he has bachelor’s degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and earned a master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Before joining NASA, he was a flight test engineer with the U.S. Air Force.Hurley is the spacecraft commander for Demo-2, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery. He was selected as an astronaut in 2000 and has completed two spaceflights. Hurley served as pilot and lead robotics operator for both STS‐127 in July 2009 and STS‐135, the final space shuttle mission, in July 2011. The New York native was born in Endicott but considers Apalachin his hometown. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Before joining NASA, he was a fighter pilot and test pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps.Mission ObjectivesThe Demo-2 mission is the final major test before NASA’s Commercial Crew Program certifies Crew Dragon for operational, long-duration missions to the space station. As SpaceX’s final flight test, it will validate all aspects of its crew transportation system, including the Crew Dragon spacecraft, spacesuits, Falcon 9 launch vehicle, launch pad 39A and operations capabilities.While en route to the station, Behnken and Hurley will take control of Crew Dragon for two manual flight tests, demonstrating their ability to control the spacecraft should an issue with the spacecraft’s automated flight arise. On Saturday, May 30, while the spacecraft is coasting, the crew will test its roll, pitch and yaw. When Crew Dragon is about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) below the station and moving around to the docking axis, the crew will conduct manual in-orbit demonstrations of the control system in the event it were needed. After pausing, rendezvous will resume and mission managers will make a final decision about whether to proceed to docking as Crew Dragon approaches 20 meters (66 feet).For operational missions, Crew Dragon will be able to launch as many as four crew members at a time and carry more than 220 pounds of cargo, allowing for an increased number crew members aboard the space station and increasing the time dedicated to research in the unique microgravity environment, as well as returning more science back to Earth.The Crew Dragon being used for this flight test can stay in orbit about 110 days, and the specific mission duration will be determined once on station based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch. The operational Crew Dragon spacecraft will be capable of staying in orbit for at least 210 days as a NASA requirement.At the conclusion of the mission, Behnken and Hurley will board Crew Dragon, which will then autonomously undock, depart the space station, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. Upon splashdown off Florida’s Atlantic coast, the crew will be picked up by the SpaceX recovery ship and returned to the dock at Cape Canaveral.NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is working with SpaceX and Boeing to design, build, test and operate safe, reliable and cost-effective human transportation systems to low-Earth orbit. Both companies are focused on test missions, including abort system demonstrations and crew flight tests, ahead of regularly flying crew missions to the space station. Both companies’ crewed flights will be the first times in history NASA has sent astronauts to space on systems owned, built, tested and operated by private companies.

Salsman: Fiscal-Monetary ‘Stimulus’ is Depressive

May 30, 2020 | Business, Politics

Writes Richard Salsman in The Hill: on why Fiscal-monetary 'stimulus' is depressive (26 May 2020):

What is the case for “stimulus”? Many economists believe public spending and money issuance create wealth or purchasing power. Not so. Our only means of obtaining real goods and services is from wealth creation — production. Under barter no one comes to market expecting to buy stuff without also offering stuff. A monetary economy does not alter this key principle.[...]To see why “stimulus” truly depresses, consult the basics. The creation of public money and public debt is not the creation of wealth; it is not food, clothing, shelter, energy or the like. Even privately generated money and debt, which reflect the needs of trade and lengthy production chains, represent, facilitate and circulate wealth but are not themselves wealth. Meanwhile, the savings borrowed by governments are unavailable to productive enterprises, and when a government creates fiat money beyond what money holders demand, the money loses purchasing power, which boosts the cost of living. These are not roads to prosperity.

Legal Challenges to the Lockdowns

May 30, 2020 | Politics

From Pacific Legal Foundation:

Napa, California; May 27, 2020: Faced with an imminent legal challenge from a local retail art gallery, Napa County officials said late yesterday that retail art galleries may open for business as part of California’s Stage 2 reopening plan.Quent and Linda Cordair sought to reopen their gallery, Quent Cordair Fine Art, using social distancing, masks, and limiting the number of customers. But Napa County ordered them to remain closed and threatened the Cordairs and their landlord with fines if they reopened ahead of California’s reopening plan. The state’s reopening plan classifies retail businesses Stage 2, while art galleries are Stage 3.The Cordairs sent a letter to Napa County, urging them to treat the gallery like other retail business and to allow them to reopen with other Stage 2 retail stores, but the county never responded.After attorneys from Pacific Legal Foundation informed the county of an impending lawsuit from the Cordairs, county officials responded that retail art galleries would be considered Stage 2 retail businesses and that they may resume operations.“We are delighted that Quent and Linda Cordair may now open their business,” said Anastasia Boden, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “It was deeply unfair that the state considered art galleries Stage 3 when the Cordairs’ shop is no different than the dozens of retail stores permitted to open now. While the government can regulate to protect public health, laws cannot be arbitrary.”As a result of the county’s announcement, the Cordairs are no longer moving forward with their planned lawsuit.“We are happy that we can sell our art to willing customers, with recommended safety protocols in place,” said Linda Cordair. “But we shouldn’t have to go through all this trouble to get permission. We should be able to pursue our passion, earn a living, and serve our customers without having to threaten legal action.”

Elan Journo interviews Anastasia Boden, Pacific Legal Foundation's senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, and Steve Simpson a legal scholar with the Ayn Rand Institute:

Andrew Coulson: Innovation in Education

May 26, 2020 | Culture

Andrew Coulson, author of the highly recommended Market Education: The Unknown History has a three video series on innovation in education.From the program description:

"With the great inventions of the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century, productivity rose dramatically -- and the innovations behind it spread like wildfire. But not so in education. In those early years, education was controlled by parents, but Horace Mann championed efforts to put education into the hands of state-appointed experts and state-trained teachers. And so, universal public education in America was born.The documentary flashes forward to East Los Angeles, and a modern story of what happened when Jaime Escalante, a gifted math teacher at Garfield High, and the educational excellence he created in the classroom became the basis of the Hollywood movie, Stand and Deliver. Finally, Coulson travels to Seoul, South Korea, where college-bound students eagerly enroll in after school tutoring programs called “Hagwons.” Students and administrators tell us how well it works, and one professor declares he makes more than a million dollars in salary every year.In “The Price of Excellence,” the first episode of School, Inc., the late Andrew Coulson, senior fellow of education policy at Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, explores the industry of education, its history, the politics that sometimes impede the growth of good schools – and good teachers -- and the rise of entrepreneurial educators."

***

From the program description:

"Education policy analyst Andrew Coulson travels to Michigan’s prestigious Cranbrook High School, one of the top ten private high schools in America, in “Push or Pull,” the second episode of School, Inc. Cranbrook -- and other excellent private schools in America --typically don’t “scale-up” to replicate their excellence on a larger scale and serve more students. So, is there someplace else where scaling up excellence is happening? The answer is “yes” and it is in America’s charter schools.But when charter schools compete with public schools, there is often trouble ahead. From those involved we hear how the Sabis School, tremendously successful in Springfield, Massachusetts, was prevented from operating in nearby Brockton, because a school superintendent decided such excellence was simply not in the best interest of his public school.For six years the American Indian Charter School, part of a small network of California charter schools, ranked among the top middle schools in California. But in the spring of 2013 the Oakland Public School District voted to shut down all three American Indian Schools, because the charter school had chosen to use its own special education services, and not those controlled by the state; that resulted in a loss of revenue to the public school system.Not every story has a negative outcome. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the city’s vibrant charter schools came to the rescue, and provided the facilities and services which other schools needed to get back on their feet. Finally, Coulson travels to South America, for a comparison of how the success of Chile’s wine industry sets the scene for the growth of the country’s successful private school networks.Chile’s private schools consistently outperform schools in all other Latin American countries, but trouble is always on the horizon. Still the private school networks of Chile provide a note of optimism in Andrew Coulson’s journey to discover the secrets of School, Inc."

***

"Ten years after Chile reformed its education system, Sweden followed suit, and so Sweden is Andrew Coulson’s first stop in episode three of School, Inc. All private schools in Sweden are now fully tax supported, and parents can choose between these so-called “free” schools and the local public schools.The global journey continues, visiting highly successful private schools in Sweden, London and India, where the resistance to education as a business has lessened. Coulson is joined by the administrators of these schools to examine the secrets of their success, learning that some of India’s highly successful private schools serve eager poor students and parents at little more than a dollar a week. School, Inc. comes full circle to conclude in the English countryside where the Industrial Revolution began. Then as now, Coulson suggests, education was perhaps the only field in which successful entrepreneurship was not celebrated"

Coulson concludes:

“What if we allowed all education entrepreneurs to put their own money on the line in an effort to better serve us, gaining or losing just as entrepreneurs do in other fields? And what if we made sure that everyone had access to that wide-open marketplace? Would we then see excellence scale-up in education?"

Such an effort is in fact occurring with Higher Ground Education, an entrepreneurial effort, that has scaled to the largest private Montessori school Inc. in the country.Recommend Reading: Market Education: The Unknown History by Andrew Coulson

Steven Kates: Why Your Grandfather’s Economics Was Better Than Yours

May 25, 2020 | Business, Politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIgkbdT5V6wSteven Kates presents the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the 2010 Austrian Scholars Conference.

Online Learning Program on History of Technology and Invention

May 20, 2020 | Culture

From Jason Crawford at Roots of Progress:

I’m thrilled to announce a new online learning program in progress studies for high school students: Progress Studies for Young Scholars.Progress Studies for Young Scholars launches in June as a summer program, with daily online learning activities for 6 weeks. We’ll be covering the history of technology and invention: the challenges of life and work and how we solved them, leading to the amazing increase in living standards over the last few centuries. Topics will include the advances in materials; automation of manufacturing and agriculture; the progression of energy from steam to oil to electricity; how railroads, cars and airplanes shrank the world; the conquest of infectious disease through sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics; and the rise of computers and the Internet. The course will also prompt students to consider the future of progress, and what part they want to play in it.The program will be guided self-study, with daily reading, podcasts or video. Students can go through the material entirely on their own for free, or pay to join a study group with an instructor for daily discussion and Q&A. Pricing to be announced soon, but scholarships will be available!In conjunction, we’re launching a speaker series of talks and interviews with experts in the history of progress, and those at the frontier pushing it forward. Speakers will include Tyler Cowen, Patrick Collison, Max Roser, Joel Mokyr, Deirdre McCloskey, Anton Howes, and many more.This is a joint project between The Roots of Progress and Higher Ground Education, the largest operator of Montessori and Montessori-inspired schools in the US. I’ve known the leadership team at Higher Ground for many years and have deep respect for them—especially the way they treat learning as a process of self-creation on the part of the student.Sign up to get announcements about the program, including the speaker series: progressstudies.schoolAnd please spread the word, especially to intellectually curious teenagers and their parents!

« Older Entries

Next Entries »