This page was last updated on December 11, 2018.
Three Cheers for Mars!; Carl Davidson (KD); Facebook; November 27, 2018.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
Carl Davidson 11/27/18 @ 1:12pm: “THREE CHEERS FOR MARS! … I WAS A NUT ABOUT OUTER SPACE WHEN I WAS KID. I read everything I could, and designed a three-stage rocket for a science fair, and won the blue ribbon. It got me to a course on astrophysics at Buhl Planetarium and then into college. BUT NOW I LOVE THE POLITICAL LESSONS. Who says government can’t do anything right? Or planning doesn’t work? Or that we have to wait for markets to take care of it? There it is folks, and it the smiles of all those NASA workers, I imagine a bit of socialist solidarity.”
[RWC] I don’t know what socialism has to do with a Mars lander. NASA is a customer working with vendors to get a product it wants, a process that happens with customers and vendors all the time. U.S. defense and space projects have been public/private joint ventures since at least World War II.
KD setting up a straw man for him to knock down goes back to my first encounter with KD’s “tall tales” in 2008. In my comments, I wrote, “Mr. Davidson’s intent was to discredit the belief in free markets by showing they aren’t appropriate in every situation. Who said they were? I don’t know why Mr. Davidson had to go back to 1778 for an example. We should also throw in water systems, sewer systems, natural gas infrastructure (not the gas itself), electricity infrastructure (not the electricity), and telephone (land line) infrastructure. Does Mr. Davidson really not see the difference between providing a road system and selling widgets, even “green” widgets? Of course, he does.”
Who says “planning doesn’t work?” I was an analyst in an evil <g> multinational oil company’s supply & distribution planning group. My guess is KD is trying to equate planning with “central planning,” as in the central planning of an economy.
KD really thinks the cheering project team was thinking about “socialist solidarity?”
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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