121–130 of 190 posts
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Government spending via redistribution is absolutely zero sum. But you are mistakenly assuming that all government spending is redistributive, as if the only thing the government did was transfer payments. Government also provides services (sometimes by contracting out to the private sector) and invests in physical capital (likewise).
-Everything- that the government provides is paid for by taking money out of the real economy.
That means that after paying for this mission to Mars, Indians have still $1499.40 left to spend on other things.
Now stop bitching.
Why do people always pass judgment on spending on things they don't agree with as if the money is destroyed. It's not like they pile all the cash onto the rocket and send it to space. Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India in this process and look at where the money is going. A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domes…
The question is: will the society as a whole benefit more from money spent by scientists and engineers or from a better health and education system. I think this is a "win win win" situation for a specific range of wealthy people and not the society at all.
Guess what, people would not use them because going to the bathroom in town was taboo. They would walk past the new toilet facility and use the woods.
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The wrong world cup. In India, it means the Cricket World Cup.
But unfortunately, nobody (outside the British Commonwealth) understands the scoring anyway.
"All nations wanting to launch to Low Earth Orbits at low costs approach us. Germany, France, Israel, Norway, Denmark, Italy are examples. Yes, despite ESA. Because PSLV is a cost effective and reliable launch vehicle for launching to LEOs."
And of course, Reddit being what it is, there were cute questions and answers as well. Sample:
Qn: "Let's face it. You're definitely "cool" now. Were you "cool" growing up? How was your school/college life in general? Do women dig ISRO scientists?"
Scientist 1: "Oh yes, cool all the way. I don't know about other scientists but they sure dig me."
Scientist 2: "He's kidding. I know for a fact that he is more single than Lance Armstrong's nut."
More here: "We are three ISRO scientists here to answer your questions -AMA" http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1ujcmo/we_are_three_i...
(I posted a similar comment a few months ago.[1] To be clear I have nothing against the India, its space program or its achievements, but it's impossible to discuss the low price of the mission without discussing the elephant in the room) There is clear lack of sterilization techniques being used on the ISRO spacecraft. This is clearly visible in the public photos and videos. NASA spend a great deal of time and steri…
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Exactly. Projects like this generate huge amounts of value for a country -- not only because they help to push money around the economy, in terms of salaries and invoices paid to rocket-building companies -- but also in terms of the skills gained by everybody that works on the project, as well as the international capital of being a spacefaring country. Right now, launching satellites in the US is a pain in the ass,…
The shuttle was never primarily used to send Satellites into space... It was used primarily for maned missions. The Atlas V is the current standard for putting satellites into space. Sierra Nevada Corporation puts a satellite into orbit almost once a week. The pain you speak of is non existent.
That's simply untrue. Access to launchers is the bottleneck to satellite development. Large institutional customers have access to space, but almost nobody else does. The commercial satellite industry has been shaped by the shortage of launchers, with satellites designed to be launched infrequently with long design lives. As a result everything is tremendously expensive.
This is changing slowly with the advent of SpaceX and the develoment of launchers by other countries. There's no reason launches can't be an order of magnitude cheaper. The fuel cost is actually a minimal part of the cost of a rocket system.
I work in the space business. Getting access to a suitable launcher for smaller lower priority projects is hard.
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Zizee had 4 paragraphs, and pravda pointed out that paragraph 3 was fallacious. The fact that paragraphs 1 and 2 are not doesn't change this. I have no idea why pravda is being downmodded, beyond silly mood affiliation.
Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window rem…
Situation 1: There is a window. It gets broken. The shopkeeper pays for it to be replaced, instead of buying a book.
Situation 2: There is no window, and there is no need for a window. But the shopkeeper pays for a window anyway, instead of buying a book.
Situation 1 is restoring the status quo, situation 2 is financing new production - but they seem equally bad, because in both cases you're paying someone to do something that doesn't (at the beginning of the situation) need to be done.
I'm not saying that we're in situation 2 here, because windows are in fact useful. But zizee's original argument was roughly, "let's forget all the benefits that we get from windows, this project is paying the wages of glaziers, this money will get taxed and etc." And I think that that particular argument in favour of this project fails, and I think pravda was correct to point it out.
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Zizee had 4 paragraphs, and pravda pointed out that paragraph 3 was fallacious. The fact that paragraphs 1 and 2 are not doesn't change this. I have no idea why pravda is being downmodded, beyond silly mood affiliation.
Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window rem…
Well, new and productive work is not equivalent to valuable work, for possibly a pretty big number of definitions of "valuable". Of course, "valuable" is subjective.
I mean, of course, in the global future context, this endeavor may contribute a lot of value, but what if I am starving and I probably wont be there to take advantage of that value? With sufficient people in this situation, the value of this project is pretty low.