Quotulatiousness

April 17, 2013

New frontier in crony capitalism – public-policy profiteering

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:47

Timothy Carney explains why the big companies that made ordinary incandescent lightbulbs were among the groups pushing to make those lightbulbs effectively illegal. It’s a classic case of using government power to reduce competition and increase profit margins for certain companies:

Absent barriers to entry, light-bulb profit margins had to stay low. GE could make superior bulbs — soft white, etc. — but people are only willing to pay so much of a premium for those. After all, we’re dealing with light here, which is kind of a commodity.

So, where to find barriers to entry? Maybe higher-tech bulbs? LEDs, CFLs, or other bulbs that offer longer life and greater efficiency. GE, Osram, and Sylvania jumped into those high-tech bulbs, got some patents. R&D expenses, higher manufacturing costs, proprietary information — these created barriers to entry and allowed heftier profit margins.

But what if you made a super-efficient long-life bulb — and nobody wanted it? What if you couldn’t convince consumers that these bulbs were good for them? Well, that’s when you thank your lucky stars that you are GE, with the largest lobbying budget of any company in America.

You “heavily back” legislation that will “effectively outlaw … the traditional incandescent light bulb.” Now all consumers are forced to play in the world where you have greater barriers to entry, and thus bigger profit margins.

The negative consequences here aren’t mere Tea Party concerns about “crony capitalism” or, say, freedom of choice. One cost is the erosion of competition. GE in this case has found a way to divorce profit from the delivery of value – and I call it public-policy profiteering.

Sure, these high-tech bulbs have value. But I think consumers, rather than politicians, should be the ones who determine what value they assign to energy efficiency and longevity. So, through government intervention, capitalism starts to resemble the Marxist caricature of capitalism — Big Businesses making profits while denying consumers what they want.

More on the US Navy’s laser weapon development effort

Filed under: Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:37

Earlier this month, it was reported that the US Navy had successfully tested their ship-mounted laser defence system called LaWS (earlier story here). Strategy Page has more information about the weapon system’s development:

The U.S. Navy believes it has found a laser technology that is capable of being useful in combat. This is not a sudden development but has been going on for most of the last decade. Three years ago the navy successfully tested this new laser weapon (six solid state lasers acting in unison), using it to destroy a small UAV. That was the seventh time the navy laser had destroyed a UAV this way. But the LaWS (Laser Weapon System) was not yet powerful enough to do this at the range, and power level, required to cripple the expected targets (missiles and small boats.) The manufacturer convinced the navy that it was just a matter of tweaking the technology to get the needed effectiveness. Three years later another test was run, under more realistic conditions. LaWS worked, knocking down a larger UAV at longer range. The navy now plans to install the system in a warship within the year for even more realistic testing.

The LaWS laser cannon was mounted on a KINETO Tracking Mount, which is similar, but larger (and more accurate than) the mount used by the Phalanx CIWS (Close In Weapons System). The navy laser weapon tests used the radar and tracking system of the CIWS. Four years ago CIWS was upgraded so that its sensors could detect speedboats, small aircraft, and naval mines. This was crucial because knocking down UAVs is not something that the navy needs help with. But with the ability to do enough damage to disable boats or missiles that are over two kilometers distant meant the LaWS was worth mounting on a warship. LaWS may yet prove incapable of working under combat conditions, but so far this new development has kept passing tests.

[. . .]

The LaWS uses electricity and more and more U.S. warships are producing a lot of electricity, mainly because it is used to operate electrical motors to propel the ship and, as part of that plan, operate weapons like LaWS. Thus a warship with an electrical drive (propulsion) system would be able support multiple shots from LaWS at low cost (a few dollars per firing). By current standards that’s pretty inexpensive ammo. The 20mm shells for the Phalanx cost less than $30 each, but you have to fire a hundred or more at each target. The 20mm cannon is being replaced by RIM-116 “Rolling Air Frame” missiles that have a longer range (7.5 kilometers) than the 20mm cannon (two kilometers) but cost nearly half a million dollars each.

Nearly half a century of engineering work has produced thousands of improvements, and a few breakthroughs, in making the lasers more powerful, accurate, and lethal. More efficient energy storage has made it possible to use lighter, shorter range ground based lasers effective against smaller targets like mortar shells and short-range rockets. Northrop’s move a decade ago was an indication that the company felt confident enough to gamble its own money, instead of what they get for government research contracts, to produce useful laser weapons. A larger high energy airborne laser would not only be useful against ballistic missiles but enemy aircraft and space satellites would also be at risk. But companies like Northrop and Boeing are still trying to produce ground and airborne lasers that can successfully operate under combat conditions. The big problem with anti-missile airborne lasers has always been the power supply. Lots of chemicals are needed to generate sufficient power for a laser that can reach out for hundreds of kilometers and do sufficient damage to a ballistic missile. To be effective the airborne laser needs sufficient power to get off several shots. So far, no one has been able to produce such a weapon. Shorter range solid state lasers need lots of electricity. This is difficult for aircraft or ground troops but not for properly equipped ship. That’s why these lasers remain “the weapon of the future” and will probably remain so for a while.

LaWS takes a different approach, using existing solid-state laser technology tweaked to complement the 20mm cannon shells normally used with Phalanx. Unlike the 20mm autocannon, the power of LaWS can be adjusted down to non-lethal (but blinding to the human eye) levels. That makes LaWS more flexible than the 20mm cannon and cheaper to operate. That will happen if LaWS proves able to operate under the same conditions that the 20mm cannon in Phalanx has operated for decades.

Within the Hermit Kingdom

Filed under: Asia, Military, Pacific — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

“Sir Humphrey” posted this a few weeks ago, but given the ongoing weirdness emanating from North Korea, it’s still fully valid:

North Korea is one of the most unusual and terrifyingly Orwellian states on the planet. Imagine a nation where every member of the population has spent the last 60 years being told that they live in a paradise, and that they have the greatest living conditions on earth. Add to this complete state control of the media and broadcast, a network of spies and informants and a gulag archipelago that would make Stalin jealous. Presiding over this nation of some 23 million utterly indoctrinated and militarized people is a tiny elite who enjoy a pampered and privileged lifestyle which provides them with any manner of goods and services. At the very top of this is the ruler Kim Jong Un, who has inherited his position from his father Kim Jong Il. The Kim dynasty are treated almost as gods, and no criticism of any form is officially tolerated.

[. . .]

It is telling that there have been multiple photos of Kim appearing in the media while making visits to the armed forces. Kim Jong Il used to do something similar, whereby he would make a regular ‘guidance’ visit to various KPA units and reiterate advice on how things could be done better (a trait of Kim Jong Il was his unerring ability to be a world expert at whatever he turned his mind to apparently). If anything Kim Jong Un has been more prominent in these sorts of visits, where he seems determined to establish his credentials as a military leader. Not a military man by background, and with no real party power base to speak of, he needs to ensure that he can count on the loyalty of the armed forces to support his regime. Photos of him delivering guidance may appear somewhat hammed up to the Western audience, but in North Korea they serve as evidence that Kim has an understanding of the threat and is prepared to meet it.

The use of the rhetoric against South Korea and the US is important — it provides a unifying theme and helps focus attention on repelling the long expected attack. At the same time, the attempt to conduct a crude form of ‘nuclear blackmail’ by conducting tests of devices and rockets helps demonstrate Kims credentials as a credible world leader, with the most advanced technology and the ability to dictate terms to the wider world. The problem though is that as Kim is discovering now, it is difficult to back down from the pedestal when the other side don’t react as you expect them to.

QotD: Compromises

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

As American kids grow up, authority figures all around them — public school teachers, local and national political leaders, the broadcast and print media, ministers and priests, and other useless busybodies — are always very enthusiastic about the idea of compromise.

Compromise, these Judas goats and stable ponies always proclaim in the most glowing terms, is the one absolutely indispensable, magical key to living and working within that best of all possible political worlds, a democracy. If everybody takes a stance and won’t budge, if nobody is willing to give at least an inch (if not a mile), why, then nothing will ever get done! This, of course, overlooks the obvious fact that there are a great many circumstances — almost all of which involve government in some way — in which nothing ever should get done.

Somewhere around the fourth grade, if we have anything like half a brain left after all the indoctrination, we begin to notice certain things about this compromise bonnet-bee that make it clear that it is something less than the wonderful notion its proponents always say it is.

The first is that, since neither side can reasonably expect to get what it really wants. The best that anyone can ever hope for, from a properly engineered compromise, is that both sides will wind up equally dissatisfied. This is not, I submit, an acceptable way to run a civilization. It is a recipe to guarantee the perpetuation of bitter conflict, creating the ideal breeding ground for politicians (like puddles for mosquitoes), for whom solved problems are a threat to their livelihood.

[. . .]

The third thing that even a nine-year-old kid notices is that, having finally been badgered and brow-beaten into accepting a glorious compromise of some kind, whoever has been sucker enough to do it will be expected to do it all over again, the next time the subject comes up.

“What’s mine is mine,” goes the saying, “and what’s yours is negotiable.”

Which is exactly how we ended up in the mess we’re in now.

L. Neil Smith, “Compromise: Political Poison”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2013-04-16

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