Peter Underwood Is Too Korean

Evan Ramstad posts the final part of his interview with Peter Underwood, and, even if I find myself in rapturous agreement, I have two quibbles.

I wish Underwood has explained just a little bit how South Korea and Taiwan diverged in their developmental paths. Both Cold War Potemkin-statelets experienced horrendous state violence committed by authoritarian governments, both reorganized agriculture, to boost industrial growth, and both suffered from civil wars. It’s important to appreciate the Taiwan Miracle, to evaluate the short-sightedness of the Park Chung-hee’s strategy.

And, I have to repeat it, what makes South Korea what it s today, is the result of ideological opposition, in the form of the Gwangju Uprising. And, for that reason, Underwood’s concluding remarks didn’t sit well with me.

Cory Booker Outs Wall Street Dems

I would like the Democratic party to become the sort of anti-Republican party, to give Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, a reason to become Republican (where he could become Mitt Romney’s VP pick). It’s not just about branding and choosing an ideology that can deliver a victory. Unfortunately, it’s about money. And, Democrats are really good at getting Wall Street – and Bain Capital – largess.

…[T]his was not some aberrational outburst from Booker; to the contrary, as Mayor of Newark, home to numerous Wall Street executives and firms, “financial support from Wall Street and, more broadly speaking, the investor class has been key to Booker’s rise, and remains key to his future dreams.”

But there’s nothing unique in that regard about Booker, who has long been regarded as a rising star in the Party. The same can be said of the Democratic Party generally. There was more or less a conscious decision in the early 1990s that the Party would transform itself into a servant of Wall Street and corporatism. It became the party of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers as it presided over massive de-regulation of the financial industry. And in response, the corporate money poured into the Party’s coffers and hasn’t stopped pouring in.

Galactic Beauty And Earthly Stupidity

If you enjoy these out-of-this-world photos (below the jump), please tell the pro-“free market” American Congress about the advantages of voting in favor of competition in outer space.

Last week, Congress approved a spending bill that demands NASA immediately choose one company for its Commercial Crew Program, and this week they will be voting on it. Killing the private competition is meant to save money and speed up development, but it may cause problems for NASA’s already stretched budget.

(…)

The problem with the short answer is that it’s short sighted. The layered approach with multiple companies vying for the contract to build a new manned space transportation system is exactly what NASA needs right now. The competition has yielded creativity and innovation. The rockets and spacecraft these companies have come up with has cost NASA millions instead of billions since the agency isn’t alone in footing the bill, and there are clearly viable systems on the horizon.

If the competition goes away, the need to come up with the most reliable, cost-effective, and flexible system will go with it. “It is unfortunate that Congress would direct an agency to pick a company before the magic of the marketplace had a chance to work,” said Dale Ketcham, director of the Spaceport Research & Technology Institute at the University of Central Florida.

We’ve seen this before. In the early days of the shuttle program, NASA was directed to pick the contractor that promised the lowest overall cost without seeing a demonstration of abilities first.

During the Space Race NASA chose contractors based on designs and previous experience rather than demonstration. In both cases the program costs were huge and staying on schedule was an ongoing battle. The only difference with Apollo-era programs was that money was no object.

Frigid beauty – Saturn’s moon, Methone