The Diane Reams show was whining about pay day lenders this morning. Lender's are accused of making very high cost short term loans to borrowers who cannot actually pay off the loan off, they just keep rolling it over, at horrible rates of interest, and get skinned.
Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to increase paperwork, and make the lender learn the borrowers income , expenses, and calculate his chances of repaying the loan. Does not sound very effective to me, although it will furnish work for bureaucrats.
They used to have laws against usury, usually defined as loans at 35% per year or worse. The payday lenders are charging more like 350% per year, which is really really bad. Usury laws used to be a business of state law. I understand that the payday lenders have managed to get usury laws repealed, or watered down in many states to allow them to operate. The payday lenders claim that they cannot do business at 35% and allowing the really poverty stricken access to loans is a social good.
I'm thinking that an old fashioned usury law, criminalizing doing loans at more than 35% would clean up the payday lender situation. It would deny credit to people on the bottom, no income, no assets, no job. These people are not good credit risks, and mostly don't have the money to pay off a payday loan. I think it's better for such people to do with out, rather than lend them money that they will be unable to repay.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Fair Point phone book fail.
So I need to renew my drivers license. I know there is or was (haven't checked lately) a DMV office on US 302 in Twin Mountain. Decide to give them a call, just to see if they are still there, and if there is any paperwork I might need to bring.
Open the Fairpoint phone book. Check the Government Offices, State section. No phone number there. Call the Littleton State Police office thinking they might have the number. They didn't, although the officer was very polite on the phone. Check the town of Franconia website, looking for a phone number for Franconia police. No phone numbers on the website. Finally dial 911. Convince the 911 person that it is not an emergeny, I just need a phone number. She finally comes up with a number. I call it. They give me another number, which finally works.
Save your old Verizon phone books, the Fairpoint one is mostly useless.
Or is it the death of phone numbers?
Open the Fairpoint phone book. Check the Government Offices, State section. No phone number there. Call the Littleton State Police office thinking they might have the number. They didn't, although the officer was very polite on the phone. Check the town of Franconia website, looking for a phone number for Franconia police. No phone numbers on the website. Finally dial 911. Convince the 911 person that it is not an emergeny, I just need a phone number. She finally comes up with a number. I call it. They give me another number, which finally works.
Save your old Verizon phone books, the Fairpoint one is mostly useless.
Or is it the death of phone numbers?
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Agencies shall make no law...
Right now federal agencies, IRS, FDA, EPA, FHA, FAA, FCC, FEC, NRC, BATFE, NSA, BLM. et cetera, ad nausium, issue regulations, lots of regulations, all of which have the force of law, and are binding upon us poor citizens. Regulations that can favor one company over another, regulations that tear a man's house down, regulations that can shut a business down arbitrarily, and regulations that make every thing more expensive.
I think we ought to take the power of regulations away from all agencies. The only laws a citizen should have to respect are real laws, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president.
Should an agency want to bind the public to something, they can try and get Congress to pass a real law. If perchance, Congress fails to pass the agency's little brain child, then it means it's a bad idea.
And while we are at it, no agency should have it's own private police force, with badges, guns, and the power of arrest. Should an agency want some law enforced, they can jolly well call the regular police, just like us citizens have to do.
In a real democracy, laws are passed by the legislature, not written by bureaucrats in secret.
I think we ought to take the power of regulations away from all agencies. The only laws a citizen should have to respect are real laws, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president.
Should an agency want to bind the public to something, they can try and get Congress to pass a real law. If perchance, Congress fails to pass the agency's little brain child, then it means it's a bad idea.
And while we are at it, no agency should have it's own private police force, with badges, guns, and the power of arrest. Should an agency want some law enforced, they can jolly well call the regular police, just like us citizens have to do.
In a real democracy, laws are passed by the legislature, not written by bureaucrats in secret.
Trump figures out the media
The Donald figures that the media are Democrats to a man, and out to get him, and elect Hillary. So, rather than the usual shtick of trying to placate them, which is what the usual pol does, Trump is trashing them, figuring that it gets him air time, and the media is so hostile now, that good solid trashing won't make things any worse than they already are. Plus the voters like watching the Donald trashing the media.
I predict more solid anti-media words coming toward the media. If Trump gets elected, he will have the bully pulpit and at least four years to let 'em have it. Fun fun fun.
I predict more solid anti-media words coming toward the media. If Trump gets elected, he will have the bully pulpit and at least four years to let 'em have it. Fun fun fun.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Year after Next.
SpaceX is creating a manned vehicle to take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Essentially they are adding life support equipment, an air plant, and retro rocket engines to the existing ISS resupply carrier. And doing 50,000 pounds of NASA paperwork to "man rate" the vehicle.
SpaceX wants to send one, unmanned, to Mars in 2018. They have a signed agreement with NASA regardng intellectual property for SpaceX and NASA support for the mission. The vehicle ("Red Dragon") would make a jet landing on Mars, under control of the autopilot. SpaceX has been able to jet land the Falcon booster on a raft in the ocean which seems like a harder job than landing on Mars with it's lesser surface gravity.
"Red Dragon" has impressive engine power. Eight engines, burning nitrogen tetraoxide and hydrazine, produce 33,000 pounds of thrust, call it 16 tons of thrust. The vehicle only weights 15 tons on earth. If the fuel holds out, it has plenty of thrust to slow down and even hover briefly before touchdown.
Takeoff will be atop a Falcon Heavy booster which is three Falcon Nine boosters, strapped together. That will be 27 rocket engines, producing 5.1 million pounds of thrust. Design goal is deliver 15 tons to Mars surface. Straight thru, no earth orbit rendezvous.
SpaceX wants to send one, unmanned, to Mars in 2018. They have a signed agreement with NASA regardng intellectual property for SpaceX and NASA support for the mission. The vehicle ("Red Dragon") would make a jet landing on Mars, under control of the autopilot. SpaceX has been able to jet land the Falcon booster on a raft in the ocean which seems like a harder job than landing on Mars with it's lesser surface gravity.
"Red Dragon" has impressive engine power. Eight engines, burning nitrogen tetraoxide and hydrazine, produce 33,000 pounds of thrust, call it 16 tons of thrust. The vehicle only weights 15 tons on earth. If the fuel holds out, it has plenty of thrust to slow down and even hover briefly before touchdown.
Takeoff will be atop a Falcon Heavy booster which is three Falcon Nine boosters, strapped together. That will be 27 rocket engines, producing 5.1 million pounds of thrust. Design goal is deliver 15 tons to Mars surface. Straight thru, no earth orbit rendezvous.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
The Norks and their nukes
The Economist ran a cover story about the need to do something about North Korea's nuclear program. They went on about weakness and craziness in the Kim regime. Like it might be so crazy as to not be deterreable. The Norks have a missile operational today with enough range to hit all of South Korea and all of Japan. They have missiles under development with enough range to hit the western US. They managed to launch a satellite which means they have a missile that can reach anywhere in the world. Might not have the throw weight to loft a nuclear warhead, yet.
The Economist claims that the Bill Clinton administration considered an air strike on the Nork's nuclear facilities, but Clinton backed off,. fearing that it would touch off a second Korean war. I never heard that story before. There has been some talk that the Norks have dug in so deep that even our 15 ton Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb couldn't take 'em out.
The Economist does acknowledge that non-military ways of pressuring the Norks pretty much don't exist, especially as the Chinese like having the Norks as a buffer state between them and the South Koreans. The Chinese are sending enough food and fuel to North Korea to keep 'em alive. The Chinese fear the Kim regime is shaky, and that any serious pressure might cause it to collapse. The Chinese don't want that to happen, cause the likely result is the South Koreans take over from the Kim regime, giving the Chinese a pushy, industrialized competitor, who is hand in glove with the Americans, right on their border.
Best the Economist can suggest is installing anti missiles, THAAD and Patriot. They compute that such a two layer defense, each layer having a Probability of kill (Pk) of 70% would yield an overall effectiveness of 90%. Not bad, but not very reassuring when you think about how bad just one nuke can be.
Of course Aviation Week doesn't see things quite that way. They have reported that each of the Nork nuclear tests had a yield of about one kiloton of TNT. That's so weak that most people call it a fizzle. So maybe the Nork's don't really have nukes, yet.
The Economist claims that the Bill Clinton administration considered an air strike on the Nork's nuclear facilities, but Clinton backed off,. fearing that it would touch off a second Korean war. I never heard that story before. There has been some talk that the Norks have dug in so deep that even our 15 ton Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb couldn't take 'em out.
The Economist does acknowledge that non-military ways of pressuring the Norks pretty much don't exist, especially as the Chinese like having the Norks as a buffer state between them and the South Koreans. The Chinese are sending enough food and fuel to North Korea to keep 'em alive. The Chinese fear the Kim regime is shaky, and that any serious pressure might cause it to collapse. The Chinese don't want that to happen, cause the likely result is the South Koreans take over from the Kim regime, giving the Chinese a pushy, industrialized competitor, who is hand in glove with the Americans, right on their border.
Best the Economist can suggest is installing anti missiles, THAAD and Patriot. They compute that such a two layer defense, each layer having a Probability of kill (Pk) of 70% would yield an overall effectiveness of 90%. Not bad, but not very reassuring when you think about how bad just one nuke can be.
Of course Aviation Week doesn't see things quite that way. They have reported that each of the Nork nuclear tests had a yield of about one kiloton of TNT. That's so weak that most people call it a fizzle. So maybe the Nork's don't really have nukes, yet.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Snowflakes on NPR
The morning story is from an NPR chick. She had a flat tire, and 5:30 in the morning. Rather than opening her trunk and breaking out the jack and the spare, she started off by finger stroking her smart phone. She found out she was not a member of AAA, and AAA memberships would not be effective for 48 hours. But she did find some obscure web site that offered road service. It took service better than an hour to get there, and only three minutes to change her tire. She closed the piece by raving about clever new websites.
She would have done better just changing her own tire, all by her little snowflake self.
I can remember insisting that my teen age daughter change a tire right in our driveway before I allowed her to drive herself to school.
She would have done better just changing her own tire, all by her little snowflake self.
I can remember insisting that my teen age daughter change a tire right in our driveway before I allowed her to drive herself to school.
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